Brick Fire Tavern — Restaurant in Honolulu

My boyfriend took me here for Valentine’s Day. I am 100% Italian and originally from NY, so with moving to the island there is very little, if any, authentic Italian cuisine. However, this menu I was super excited to try because it was as close as it gets here.

We ordered the meatball appetizer. Clam appetizer, one of their Neapolitan pizzas to split and a pasta dish to split. Mind you, it was just my boyfriend and I, and these dishes were not big by any means. They were appropriate sizes. The meatballs came with 3, clams were very small but were a perfect portion to split (as well were the meatballs) the pizza was your typical Neapolitan personal pizza, and the pasta dish was about as big as my fist. So very appropriate portions to split.

The service to begin with was outstanding. Our server, whose name I cannot recall because he did not state it, was nice enough in the beginning. He was a smaller male with a lot of hair flipped into a fohawk of sorts. My boyfriend and I are super friendly people. But when he stated “ooof you came here to EAT apparently” after we placed our order, it really rubbed me the wrong way. Being a girl who was super excited to try this menu after 2 years of searching for good Italian on this island, that’s what I’m told after ordering? Anyways, we brushed it off… And when we waited over 15 minutes for our clams to come out, they provided us a complementary salad for waiting, which was so sweet of them and totally unexpected because 15 minutes wasn’t that long.

Our main dishes (the personal Neapolitan pizza, which was cold, and the pasta dish which was OK) took 35 minutes to come out after we finished our appetizers. The two tables next to us sat approximately 15 minutes after us and got their main courses before us. Again, we don’t complain, and this is honestly the first time I’m even writing a review, but that’s how upset I am…

Our server came to pick up our finished plates (mind you, again, small serving sizes appropriate for sharing) and he goes “wow, looks like you enjoyed it…”. At this point, being the second comment about the food we ate, my blood was boiling. Not for nothing sir, but your tip reflects the amount we spend on dinner. So shouldn’t you be encouraging us to enjoy all the food we came here for?

I started to get very upset, so when we ordered desert, I said to him as kindly as I could, “is this an appropriate amount of desert to order for your standards? Or do you have a comment? Because everything we have ordered so far has warranted a comment from your mouth about how much food it is or how much we have eaten, and honestly, you should be WANTING Us to order as much as we want given your tip will reflect that.”

This man stared at me, blubbered some noises, and couldn’t formulate a sentence to speak other than “you’re right, if you have room for it go for it”.

My boyfriend being a better person than I tipped this young rude man as a server should be tipped. But if it were up to me, he wouldn’t have gotten more than $5 for his comments.

I’m disgusted and truly disappointed as I was so excited to taste this menu. It’s sad that such bad service can ruin an experience.

The food was good. Other than the pizza being cold and pasta dish being too sweet, and the desert cannoli having little taste. But I guess that’s what we get for island Italian.

But honestly, if the service was better, the review...

We've been fans of Brick Fire Tavern's Neapolitan pizzas since 2016 and were disappointed yet excited for its certified trained pizzaiolo owners when they decided to move from Chinatown to Kaimukī in 2020. Wow! What a time for a move as we are amid the pandemic but, to us, even as we were doing our best to stay in place, we were still drawn to Brick Fire Tavern's pizzas. However, it's taken us almost a year since BFT's move (September 2020) to Kaimukī to get a taste of what we've been missing.

Usually, I make dining reservations through OpenTable.com, but this time, I decided to call my reservation in. Fortunately, there were still a few reservations for the date and time that I wanted. I also inquired about the location of their parking lot behind the building with its entrance on the makai side of 9th Avenue off Waialae Avenue. Their open parking lot was spacious, but please note that the lot is shared with other businesses, so if it's crowded, you'll probably have to look for metered or free street parking.

Sophia, our server, introduced herself to us with positive and friendly energy. She asked if this was our first time dining with BFT Kaimukī, which we confirmed, but we had been regulars at their former Chinatown location. We also mentioned how much we liked their new location because it's only a 4-mile drive away and has the bonus of free parking. Their Kaimukī restaurant is larger and has a more open contemporary layout.

We didn't order adult beverages or appetizers because BFT was our second stop in our celebratory progressive dinner. It didn't take us long to place our order because we spotted one of our favorite BFT pies, Da "Shrimp Truck" ($21) and the Bolognese Pappardelle ($23). Both dishes were prepared well and tasted as delicious as we remembered.

Throughout our dining experience, Sophia's attentiveness and friendly demeanor were welcoming and yet unobtrusive. Her fun-loving and positive attitude added to our already exciting evening. Brick Fire Tavern's food was on point, and we're already looking forward to...

We have dined here four times. Three times the food and service was excellent. It was obvious the owner was present, he spoke to us, he cared he was concerned. Our waitress was for three dining occasions Rachel, excellent, caring and efficient. This evening was different! We had the waitress with the blue hair, whom we were warned about prior to this evening by our friend who we had recommended the restaurant to. She ignored us and felt that by being jolly that her lack of service would be ignored as well. The food was as always excellent, but the entire ordeal was over two hours. The starters took too long, I complained, suddenly they showed up. She smiled. We waited (with young children) for over 45 minutes for our mains, finally the food arrived, she smiled. She (the waitress) felt it was far more important to look after obvious friends than to care for a table of five. Then it happened. The manager shows up, wanting to know if all is ok. I said no. His first and foremost response was to tell me that I should not take it out on the server. My response was "why", she has ignored us. Then the excuses began, "too many pasta orders" and then because I pointed out that all that had to be done was to inform us, communicate with us he became argumentative, arrogant and simply one of those managers that has an excuse for everything. We were made to feel as if we had done something wrong, the bill came before the plates were cleared. The waitress continued to chit chat with the other guests, and made no effort to rectify the issues that we had pointed out to the "you are wrong, and I am always right" manager. When we left the waitress would not speak to us. Do you know why, because the Manager supports and endorses this type of behaviour. My advice: Do not change the food it was excellent. Do not let the kitchen manage the restaurant, it will fail. Do not let your assistant manager be arrogant or make an excuse for situations that can happen in any restaurant. He cannot be humble which in hospitality is...