Papa Kona Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Hawaii

I usually don't take time to post negative experiences, except when they are particularly terrible. Sadly, this is one of those cases.

Hostess was very nice, waitress assigned to our table was also nice. Everything was going well. This is when things started taking a turn. We were seated on the side facing the west where the midday sun was blasting full force. After a few minutes, I got up and politely asked one of the waitresses if we could get moved to a side of the restaurant that was empty. The entire restaurant was pretty slow, so we figured it was not really a big ask. The hostess said she would have to ask the waitress for the area we wanted to move to. She came back and told us they had refused our request. As I was talking to the hostess, the same waitress who she had asked to move us walked past us and in a very defiant tone asked "Everything ok?", to which both the hostess and I politely responded that it was. After the hostess explained why she couldn't move us because we had already ordered the food, I went back to the table. I knew I had to suck it and resist the heat. Our waitress was still very polite and helpful and kept bringing us more water to try to "keep us cool", and in all fairness the food was ok. We didn't complain any further and tried our best to enjoy the meal under the circumstances. Here is where it gets ugly.

After we were finished paying, my wife told me she had to use the restroom. So instead of continuing to wait under the scorching sun, I moved our stuff to one of the empty tables in the area that was a bit cooler. Mind you, the restaurant was SLOW and it was breakfast at 10 am. So the same waitress who refused our table swap walks up to me, and in a very demeaning tone asks me "Can I help you sir?", to which I politely responded that I was just sitting waiting for my wife to come out of the restroom. She then proceeded to act confused as to why I wanted to sit there if I was not ordering anything, so I tried to explain that we were patrons and had already eaten and paid for our meal, and I was simply sitting and waiting for my wife to come out of the restroom. Then she proceeded to in a very demeaning way act like she didn't want me there if I wasn't going to order something else, so at that point I asked "are you implying I cannot sit here while I wait for my wife to come out of the restroom for 5 minutes"?

Her response "Well this this is just how restaurants work"

At this point I reached my tipping point and became upset, and began to tell her how I didn't think it was fair that she would be giving me a hard time considering the place was empty and I had just eaten, especially after they had refused to move us.

But I didn't even finish my sentence before she just turned around and left while I was still talking.

To make matter worse, at this point I felt I needed to speak to the manager. Not about the moving tables issue, but regarding the treatment received by this waitress. I told the manager about the entire situation and demeaning attitude on behalf of this waitress, and not only did the manager refuse to offer a sincere apology, she proceeded to justify the behaviour and was even smirking as she was talking about what the waitress had said. All she could recognize was "She should't have done that", but she was smirking the whole time while she was saying this. At this point my wife came out and she weighed in on us having to endure the sun even though all the tables were empty, and pointed to her sunburns. To which the manager responded "Ah it's just a little tan".

At this point I just gave up and left, completely dissappointed about this experience. The food was barely ok. The service by our waitress and the hostess was good. They're the only reason I give 1 star. But everything was eclipsed by the terrible treatment by the other waitress and the manager.

So in summary, unless you want to be made feel like you don't belong just because you don't LOOK like a tourist, stay away. There's better places to go. I for one, will never...

By service, I mean our server not the manager. By atmosphere, I mean the manager Debbie. Although our food was good and table service great, zero people in our party of 37 returned to Papa Kona’s during our 10 day stay because of how incredibly rude Debbie was to us, literally the only people in the restaurant at 4pm on Friday 6/21. She claimed my reservation was only for 24 people. Yet, the hostess advised when we arrived that instead of the tables for 24 and 12 per my reservation, she was able to set up 3 tables of 12 so we could mingle easier. When I asked her how then did they know to set set up 36 seats for us? She replied that I must have “skirted around the rules and called in with a similar name to book 12 more. She said a part my size had to reserve the banquet room but I wasn’t offered or suggested the banquet room when I made the reservation with a very nice lady in April who was willing to accommodate us with 2 tables as long as we didn’t come during sunset busy dinner time. We agreed on 4pm. Debbie told me that my party, some who hadn’t seen each other in over 20 years, were creating “complete chaos” by joyfully greeting each other. And that even if my reservation was for 36 we had “way more than that and people standing all over without seats”. They had seats, they just hadn’t sat yet. I counted there were 37. I apologized for the miss count of 1 and asked if we could just use the table for 2 behind us. She said no because it was in a different server station. I asked for another table with our server. She said there were not any. Here’s where I’ll point out, we were literally the only customers in the restaurant! I asked her what I could do to fix it. She replied “you figure it out and come let me know”. The 8 cousins said they would move to another section if that worked for Debbie. I asked her, she agreed, all seemed ok. But no. She came back yelling that I created “mass confusion” with her servers since some of the people who moved had already ordered. I did not know that. Debbie did not like that, and it was all my fault for coming up with the idea to move them. (Note: once everyone sat down after the 8 cousins moved, we had 8 empty chairs. Debbie got all worked up and created her own chaos) She then demanded that we pay with no more than three checks although the host confirmed when we got there that separate checks were ok as long as everyone didn’t have their own check. Debbie didn’t care. So we paid with 3 checks. 20% added to each check plus an extra 200 cash to our excellent, fast, accurate, engaging, smiley happy server. We made sure Debbie’s treatment of us did not affect the server’s tip! With every meal in our party over 40 and every adult ordering at least 3 beverages at 15 each, AND being the only Party in the building, I would think she could have been a little grateful and maybe, like her servers, engage in the joy her customers were having over my daughter getting married the next day! Which is why we came to her (once) favorite restaurant to meet up with family before the wedding. Debbie killed our joy. No...

I’m born and raised here on the Big Island so this is not a biased review but an honest one.

First off, the restaurant is located in the backside of the building but in my opinion - in prime location to view the ocean and Ali’i drive. As we walked in the host was very kind in greeting us and was sat along the rail looking out towards the cove.

Soon after being seated the server arrived and took our order for food (at the time we didn’t know what adult beverage we wanted). In the meantime we were ready to order an adult beverage but have not seen the waiter come by in almost 15min and this wasn’t only our table. Now, it was busy but it wasn’t that busy to not be able to check on your other tables that were waiting on food. The next time the waiter came by was when the food was brought to the table and it wasn’t even the waiter assigned to our section. My partner light-heartedly made a joke about our waiter disappearing and this server had the nerve to role her eyes and walk away without saying a word.

Our assigned waiter finally returned and the vibe was just off at this point. We figured we would order our drinks and make the best of the situation in hopes that service got better. My partner ordered the omelet and it was a little dry and the potatoes heavily seasoned. I had the French toast which was made with Punalu’u sweet bread so it was good.

Overall the food ended up being just ok. As we are eating and drinking all we could think about was closing the bill and leaving. When we flagged down the waiter we tried to emphasize with him because his section was big and it started to get packed (mind you we’ve already been here for some time when it wasn’t packed in the beginning). He gave an apology that seemed fake because if we didn’t point anything out, I doubt anything would have been said. We paid our bill and still tipped 20% because as an islander I’d prefer to give back to a local ran business vs a corporation. I am ashamed that this is how a local business is representing Kona side and the natives of the Big Island. I do think there are redeemable qualities and I hope this review as well as the others like mine aren’t discarded because we’ll just take our service to the resorts where they actually care and if they are pretending - I sure as heck...