Opakapaka Grill and Bar — Restaurant in Kauai

Terrible experience. Who are these people writing 5-star reviews? The food and the service were really bad. We’re staying up in Princeville. I called at 6:25 PM confirming their hours and confirming that they were serving burgers, which are prominently advertised on their website. Our server, “Jango” obviously had minimal training. But he did inform me that they were out of burgers at 7:15 even though just 50 minutes earlier, “Jen” assured me on the phone that they had “delicious burgers” and to come on down.

Jango said they had them earlier and must have run out, thus the confusion. There were maybe three or four other tables with people eating. I’m pretty sure that he knew that there were no burgers when I called. Did all the tables order multiple plates of burgers per person? It was obvious that they didn’t care. There was no manager to be seen. How could you not have a manger walking the floor when things are so slow. Well, maybe Jen (the bartender, I was told) is also the manager. Speaking of alcohol, even though their website says they have draft and bottled beer, Jango informed me that they aren’t currently serving beer. Did they lose their liquor license?

The interior is getting pretty rundown, which is sad for an eight-year-old restaurant. The staff don’t seem to care, and I’m assuming that the owner doesn’t really care either. My wife ordered the catch of the day, Ahi. She ordered it seared. It was way overcooked, and pretty thin for a cut of Ahi. Jango placed the plate down, saying “This is way overcooked for seared in my opinion. I hope you enjoy it.” He never even bothered to check to see how our food was. Remember, there were maybe a handful of tables at the most with guests.

I had to track him down because my wife’s side of vegetables (carrots, broccoli and potato slices) were practically raw. She sent them back to be cooked some more. She finally had to go to the (open) kitchen to find the status of the vegetables. The cook and his assistant were jaw-jacking with one another and had completely forgotten about the vegetables.

In lieu of the burger, I ordered a bowl of the fresh fish chowder. Not only was it lacking in fish, but it was the blandest chowder I’ve ever had in decades of eating out. All in all, it was a terrible experience that you have to drive nearly to the end of the road to reach, through windy, narrow roads. Save yourself the trip and the waste of money. This is definitely a...

Run do not walk AWAY from this place. If you're going to be the last restaurant on the north side, then this needs to be a destination level place, not a starting line for a race leading away.

Our first clue should have been that there were more staff than customers, but each day is different so you never know.

My wife and I were seated by the kind hostess and waited only a short period to order our drinks, which were probably overpriced, but good nonetheless.

Our waiter suggested the shrimp quesadilla as an appetizer to start. We took his suggestion. As the plate came out our waiter wanted to make room on the table so we closed our menus and told him that we already knew what we wanted to order for our meal. I ordered the grilled fish tacos (per the waiters suggestion), and my wife ordered the fish and chips. The waiter then repeats our order back to us and says, "I wont put them in yet"... red flag.

The quesadilla was underwhelming to put it nicely. There were 2 quesadillas cut into quarters and what seemed to be about two full family size bags of shredded cheese melted inside. I went on a scavenger hunt for the shrimp, but was able to find a TOTAL of four...which were cut into bite size pieces ready for a toddler. This was very clearly a mistaken item meant for the kid's menu.

Now we wait...and wait... and wait...and wait. Our ordered food never comes. We've now picked out all of the shrimp bites and left half of the quesadilla s disected on the plate. Our waiter comes by and asks if we want a box...uh no, we're good.

"Are you ready for your check or did you save room for dessert?"

KID. YOU. NOT.

He never put our order in then I guess just forgot we'd like to eat at all.

Trying not to completely die laughing at the poor guy, we just took our check. $50 bucks... two drinks and a kids meal... $50! I guess we got $50 worth of hilarious conversation for the ride home.

Anywho... we're now out looking for a place to eat dinner tonight if anyone has...

Came for dinner to watch the sunset. We arrived relatively early around 5:45pm after numerous attempts to call and make a reservation (called 5-10x). After calling and calling ahead of time at 5, when they opened, we eventually gave up and decided to just make the 30 min drive to see if we could get in.

We arrived and were told that two parties were ahead of us, so it would be at least 15 minutes. Not a problem for us whatsoever. We asked if we could go wait in the back so we could watch the sunset. They said unfortunately it’s first come first serve, so if we wanted our spot in line, we had to stay there. They only let two parties in the back for some reason and refuse to put together any kind of waitlist. Which, I’m still trying to wrap my head around.

We finally got seated after the sun had set. Which was a bummer, but we were still optimistic. I had a dinner salad and my wife ordered the tempura sushi roll and a side of fries. The fries were good. My salad tasted like it came out of a bag and the sushi roll did not taste good either. The fries were the only thing that we both agreed was good. Our table had slots that I don’t think had been cleaned for weeks (see pics) if not longer and the windows are foggy and in desperate need for either a deep clean or replacement like others in the reviews had mentioned.

They were only using half of the restaurant and had two servers, so it had kind of a rundown, on-it’s-way-out feel/vibe. Service was good and they were trying, but it just simply was not an enjoyable experience.

Some extremely simple things could really help turn this restaurant around. They had tiki torches outside, but didn’t turn them on. No music was playing which would help tremendously to set the tone for the environment, and a good cleaning of the windows and would reassure patrons that cleaning protocols aren’t...