Tropics Ale House - Waikōloa — Restaurant in Hawaii

My wife and I had some family come stay with us from the mainland. While we were in waikoloa, we decided to use a coupon that we had got from being customers of T-Mobile. Anybody that has their service is familiar with their Tuesday give aways. Well a few months ago one of their Tuesday offers was a deal through dining advantage, which gives you coupons to local places (probably to get people to try a new place). One of their Tuesday offers coupons is been saving was a bogo for tropics. When we got to tropics it was very quiet. Only a few other patrons. Atmosphere seemed nice. Our server started off as a complete gentleman and was personable. Our food came, it too was pretty good. We don’t expect a 5* experience but the price for the quality was perfect. Now comes time to pay. We informed our server of our coupon and his first response was, “oh, I’ve never seen this before, let me take it back to the owner to check out.” Okay no problem. Server comes back a couple minutes later and this time the vibe is way different.. dude begins to tell me I’m a fraud and my coupon is a fraud too and that they’ve been having this problem for a couple months now.. mind you he said the fake coupons they have been getting was straight up for free food and even free alcohol. That’s not what I was trying to get, mine was a bogo of food only. We weren’t here to fight and we had the money to pay our bill, so we just wanted to pay and leave. Instead the server continued to berate us for about 10 minutes over how our coupon was a fraud and so were we. Asking us, “why would our restaurant even do that, what would we get out of it?” Buddy, I’m not the boss but I can tell you now that I’ve never been to your establishment before. Had everything gone the way we expected, we definitely would have been return customers. Food was good for the price, drinks are lower than resorts. That’s what your company gets out of signing up with this company. EXPOSURE. But because the owner decided to back out of their agreement, have you the backing and permission to attack my wife and I as if we were thieves, we will never return and you got a fat 0$ tip for your efforts. Attached are photos of the coupon I had for tropics along with the long list of other companies participating with this...

I actually think this was hands down the worst hospitality experience I’ve ever experienced. Myself and my party of 4 came into the restaurant at 4pm - 6 hours before their posted closing time. The AFC championship game playing with an hour to go. The entrance had a “please wait to be seated sign” so we patiently waited while watching the game behind the bar.

After 20 minutes someone approached us and told us they will not be seating us because they are closing at 5pm. They let us know they will not be seating us.

Tried to order a drink at the bar while we stood to watch the game and bartender told us we could order a drink with our server and would not take our order.

We found a seat with some new friends at a table. When our server delivered their food and refilled their drinks, he refused eye contact with us and said nothing to us. After 30 minutes at the table and multiple visits from the server we packed up camp and left to head to another restaurant where we could order food and drinks.

While I can understand being busy, I cannot understand absolutely ignoring customers and making them feel unwelcome and intrusive.

The menu sure looked good but we will never know and can confidently say we are not looking forward to a return visit in the future.

If I were the owner, I would be sick to know that the staff treats...

This is a more of a bar food type of place, but the food is much better than your typical wings and other fried stuff. I actually enjoyed the food and relaxed environment most out of all the other places that I checked out while in Waikoloa. The prices were the most reasonable as well.

I ate there twice. The first time was for lunch and I enjoyed a very well made seared ahi fish sandwich. Very tasty and fresh. The second time was for dinner. This time I ventured to try the calamari, fish taco's and the Tropics salad. Yes, calamari and fish taco's were typical bar fare, but very tasty. The Tropics salad was great. Light and fresh with a hint of fruit. I saw some people getting pizza and they looked really good.

The bar has just about everything and a huge assortment of beers on tap. The bartender introduced me to a PB & J shot. It was fantastic. Who knew that you could make a shot taste like peanut butter and jelly.

It isn't a fancy place, but it is nice and relaxing. The time I went for dinner, there was live music with a solo performer that had an amazing voice. It wasn't to loud, so you could either enjoy it or continue your conversations.

This place is a little off the beaten path, so you have to look a little harder to find it. It's worth it and if I visit again, will hit the place up...