The Booch Bar — Restaurant in Hawaii

I love the Booch Bar. I've lived in Hilo Town for 9 years and have watched this place grow. I am so excited about the new expansion though I am sure that people were sad to see "Bear's Coffee" go, but the pandemic was hard for many. I love the new booths here because there aren't a lot of places in town to go sit in a booth and have a beverage and work on my computer with great vibes and music.

I'm so happy for the expansion because this place can get busy (because this is delicious food and drinks, here!) and now there is enough room to accommodate people to study and chill for a little longer rather than taking up the tables for too long and preventing the other customers from having a place to sit.

The food and drinks are always really delicious and healthy and I don't drink alcohol anymore, but the brews and cocktails look amazing if I were to be boozing it still! My favorite is the Palo Santo Jun. The kraut is amazing and I am totally of polish descent and I give the thumbs up! Fermented foods make me happy, but so does the double shot dirty masala chai latte. Some places give you overly sweet drinks, but this has a good ratio (and not laden with sugars to make my eyeballs pop out of my head like I 'm tripping out because that's what too much sugar does to me. lol).

The staff is always super kind and competent and you can see that they work together like a good family to make sure everyone is happy and the place runs smoothly. I love the hanging lights and the fans and this gives like an old timey 30's kind of a vibe, but with a modern and colorful feel to the old soda foundation places, but that's where my imagination takes me.

The music selection is fun and they choose the best kinds of genres and artists and have impeccable taste in music here, which you don't find in a lot of places on this island. Overall, I love to to come here and chill and I was away for quite some time with trauma and pandemic and life to pull me to other areas of the world, but I am stoked to be back around the Booch Bar. I was a Sharkey's coffee employee for 2 years until he closed down (and I got a career doing acupuncture), but would always pop across the street to grab the daily Booch/Jun brew.

Thank-you Booch Bar for giving the love not only to your own place and livelihood, but to your staff, customers, community, and the conscious ingredients that you select to serve us. Thanks for being a positive influence on the neighborhood and for keeping it real. People who love to dance know how to live. right!

WI-FI is on my wish list for here because my hot spot is slow, but brick by brick we build our castles.

I loved their food but was disheartened by the service we received. There was a definite vibe like we should feel lucky to get to eat at such a hip spot.

If they couldn't accommodate us it would have been fine had they just told us. Instead we were given the impression it was no problem whatsoever.

I know it seems commonplace to treat things like celiac, a serious autoimmune disorder, like a joke. HOWEVER, it is a serious issue for people living with it.

People with celiac disease have an autoimmune reaction that can take up to 6 months or longer to heal after ingesting even a small amount of gluten from wheat,rye,barley or sometimes even oats.

So once I ate a couple bites of salad and my mouth and tongue started to hurt I knew something was wrong and found the croutons under the lettuce.

Rather than fix the salad again they removed the ingredient and sent it back out. I could have done that myself. I understand how it might seem safe to do that but it's not.

Crumbs alone will trigger an autoimmune cascade.

They were clearly irritated. One good thing for the place is there's an open window to the kitchen. Which in this case, iIt made it easy to see the chef's annoyance in addition to our server's.

We were paying a good amount for Caesar salads without croutons..which is virtually no ingredients anyway.

Had they just expressed they couldn't meet the request. We would have understood and happily moved on to somewhere else rather than end up w swollen and painful mouths and the vomiting later.

I strongly suggest if you have food allergies or intolerance that you are cautious if you eat here.

Other than that, food is good,booch is good, good music. It is exceptionally loud which can be good or bad depending on your reason for being there. I wouldn't suggest business meet ups here or for people with sensory issues.

There are tables set up outside on the sidewalk which is a little better but it's still pretty loud. They have lovely artwork hanging and the design of the restaurant is nice.

I just want to stress ,what is upsetting to me is the attitude of the staff.

After we left my father called and left a message for the manager who never called us. I wonder if the manager ever received our message.

If you do choose to eat there I recommend the beet salad with rootbeer or hibiscus booch.

I just can't support a restaurant that treats their patrons so poorly over something like not putting croutons on a salad. Who knows maybe they treat everyone this way.

I wish they had returned Dad's call because if so we would have probably returned and continued to buy their booch...

I really wanted to leave a better review here but I unfortunately don’t have one. While the food is mostly consistent and good, the customer service is absolute trash. I have been eating here for years. I have taken all my gf and vegan clients here and house guests when they come. I’ve always been so kind and say hello and goodbye, tip big, compliment them, thank them, and to this day, not one single person has ever smiled back at me. A smile. A simple smile. The last straw was- A few days ago we went in to eat and the gal at the front was talking to a man in front of us, she was all happy and nice to him and THE MOMENT we all stepped forward to order she glared at us. I again, as usual, smiled at her and asked how her day was and she straight up stared at me straight in my face and glared… she never even answered. And she just stared at me till we started ordering. We ordered as usual and received our food and then could hear girls in the back gossiping about the customers. It was absolutely appalling and made me incredibly uncomfortable. I am sick of coming here and being treated like this. I’m sick of the behaviors of the staff. Other folks in the community have mentioned it as well but I was hoping that by showing gratitude I wouldn’t have to deal with it every time. How hard is it to smile and pass a little aloha and customer service out to your customers? Why is this continually ignored? Why do they continue to be like this? Anyway, food -4 stars. Service, Attitude and behavior of staff -0 Do...