Hawaii's Luxury Lounge at Ground Level — Restaurant in Honolulu

I visited over the weekend with my friend and his girlfriend, we found parking next to each other on the street. The venue itself was nice, but the prices were higher than expected, and we ended up spending more than planned.

The first 30 minutes were a bit frustrating as we struggled to get the hookah started. We requested more water be added to the base and eventually an additional coal to help it get started — it turned out the issue was the hose wasn’t attached properly, no big deal, once that was resolved we hung out, checking out the new venue and chatting about the errands we’d run afterwards. Up til this point we appreciated the service provided to us.

Not too long after that our server, Kela who is also the manager approached us. Unfortunately, the interaction quickly became uncomfortable. Kela told us that she knew one of us worked at another hookah lounge and immediately accused us of leaving bad reviews about the Ground Level Lounge. I do not personally work at the other lounge but my friend who was with us does. She then asked us to pull up our Google reviews to show her our reviews history or leave which I have never before experienced. After proving none of us had previously left a review she shifted the blame to other employees of the other business. We tried to laugh it off and promised to leave honest review but the atmosphere had already become awkward.

The manager had strongly encouraged us to leave a good review, I actually had left a good review on Yelp on the way out because it felt like the best way of getting out of an uncomfortable situation, but in retrospect I feel an honest a review is more appropriate.

The package we bought included 2 chips and 2 drinks, but when we opted out, we were told the cost would be adjusted—it wasn’t. In total, we spent $88 for 90 minutes, including three kavas, which felt steep given the experience.

Regardless if one of our party members works at another hookah lounge or not, we came in as friendly, paying customers and expected to be treated as such. It was quite awkward, if I worked at a bar I wouldn’t only drink at the bar worked at, and/or purposefully make other bartenders feel like they’re...

The atmosphere was cool, but the service was horrible. The skinny brunette(Sonya)said she was a manager failed to communicate that BYOB was an additional $10. She verbally mentioned that we could bring our own liquor, but she didn’t mention that it came with an additional fee. At check out she said it was on the menu. If she wanted to take that route she should have just let us review the menu from the start. Also, we wanted non nicotine hookah. After receiving it we told her it didn’t have any flavor. It just tasted like smoke. She explained that the brand they use, which is from bananas or something could lighten the flavor. The flavor wasn’t just lighten. The issue was that there was nooooo flavor. I’ve ordered a hookah before and realized I didn’t like the flavor. In that case I just pushed through it and knew not to order it again. This is a different case. It was nothing to like. It was just smoke. We ordered two mix flavors. She said, there was nothing she could do about it and that we would have to pay $25 for her to make another flavor. She offered no customer service solution. Anyway, I personally would not go again. It was a horrible experience for us. I only gave one star for food and service because something had to be selected. There were no...

This place is definitely a tourist trap. Specially they are very close to Waikiki area, and the way it is priced, I would not call it local friendly. Coming from Texas never paid this much for Hookah, I do understand Hawai is one of the expensive states but still this excuse cannot justify the price range. I don’t really care about leather couches, you can have me sit on the ground, but serve me reasonable price, Hookah. I don’t think DJ is a very good choice for a relaxing lounge. I see the replies on other negative reviews when management stated, that price was discussed but that could be a very disgusting trick as well to get people in front of the door when they already paid $20 Uber cost and now you are giving them the option of paying another $20 Uber to go to other hookah Lounges . Mostly people would choose the place out of frustration. Overall would not recommend and will...