Tahiti Nui — Restaurant in Kauai

The biggest problem about Tahiti Nui, at least in our experience, was the seating / host. There are no reservations, and it's clearly stated that it's first come first serve. So we waited in line for half an hour, watching some people get seated at tables when they got to the front of the line, and seeing other people being seated at the bar when they got to the front of the line. But when we got to the front the hostess just asked for our phone number and said it would be another 25 minutes (and then did the same for people behind us). It was a very confusing and chaotic system, though I don't doubt it helps fill every available seat.

The real problem was that we then thought we had 25 minutes to walk around, so we walked down the block and peeked through some shop windows, and after about 20 minutes we got a text saying we were next in line, so we walked back and sat on a very uncomfortable bench next to the hostess stand. And watched as the hostess called over the next 2 people standing in line from halfway across the restaurant to go sit at the bar. Whatever, we were waiting for a proper table. But then she came all the way back to the line where we were sitting and took the next couple from the line to a table. And when I tried to ask her if we had missed being called since the text only said we were next and not to actually come to the hostess stand like I've seen at other restaurants, she got very annoyed and tried to blame me for not knowing I needed to barge in front of this whole new line that had formed. There was definitely a moment there where she was considering not seating us after having waited almost an hour, which was terrifying since it was one of only 2 places with food on the entire north side of the island that were still open by that point and I don't think we would have made it to the other before they closed.

She did begrudgingly find us a seat, but it was a pretty bad start that really left us on the wrong foot. Fortunately our first round of drinks came frighteningly fast and were delightful- nearing classic tiki cocktail levels of balance and intensity but leaning sweet (pretty close to a Trader Sams). I would not be surprised if they were the best drinks on the island, but we have lots more research needed on that front =). The Nui Burger was good enough, but there are lots of better burgers on Kauai. The mac nut crusted chicken was both unique (to us) and tasted great with the sauce it came with. No complaints; I would just never want to deal with that line again only for the food.

The drinks... we might come back for. I especially liked Pele's Passion. And although it irks me how many different drinks get called a Mai Tai without much indication of how they're different than the original... this abomination was very tasty. I can't even remember the names of our second round, which is equally due to their potency and just not being as good as the first round (the one with muddled lemons and ginger was a mess of flavors).

And the fact that we're not the only ones that will come back just for the drinks is likely why that line is such chaos. They should probably split it into a line for just the bar and then run all table seating through the phone system. Or, heck, just stick...

We searched Google for a while, trying to find a fun, laid-back, tasty restaurant for my husband's 50th birthday. We thought this place was the place that would check all of our boxes but sadly, it did not!

Our waitress started out very strong and promising, but after she took our order, she vanished! My husband ordered and enjoyed the burger. We saw the size of the pizza so we got that as a sharable plate. I'm so happy we did because I ordered the Ribeye medium well, and it arrived walking to our table! I knew immediately upon seeing it that it was far from anything well. There was blood leaking out on top of my garlic mash and veggies. I cut the very tip of the steak and it was bright red! It had to be Rare. I patiently waited for the reappearance of our Houdini waitress but had to flag down the nearest passer-by employee. I told her that it wasn't the temp I ordered, and she immediately said it's under, huh? I said yes, extremely! She took it back. As I waited some more, I ate the life-saving tasty pizza. By this time, my husband was done with his burger and was dying of thirst because he drank all of his water and iced tea. We sat our cups at the edge of the table in the hopes of someone seeing the need of a refill. But no luck!

Our waitress did come back to her section and walked right passed us, our empty cups, my non existent meal, my husband's clean plate and headed to the table caddy corner to us to settle the bill. She stood right at their table with her little machine as they paid with a card. I felt uncomfortable for them as there was no room for privacy. When our waitress was done there, she checked on another table before walking past us again! She returned to refill the table of four's waters. She turned and passed us again but stopped and asked if we needed a refill? I said yeah as well as an iced tea. Mind you, I still have no steak!! She never asks or mentions anything about my meal or clears any plates. Finally, a man comes with my food and says re-fire on the steak, drops it off and leaves. The steak was a tad bit more cooked but now my sides were ice cold! They literally gave me the same plate with the pool of blood on my potatoes and the tip of steak that I initially cut was still rare, tucked under the meat. Sooooo disappointed and disgusted. I ate the flavorless ribeye as much as I could as it was full of uncooked fat and gristle, but noRare, ruined sides.

When the waitress came back the next time, it was to settle the bill. She didn't offer any dessert, so we asked. She said yes, we have some desserts. I ordered the coconut cream pie, and she said oh, we're all out! We asked for a box for the left-over pizza, and she asked what size box do you want? Out of frustration, I just said whatever size I can get. We paid cash for the check, and she said oh, cash? I'll have to go to the bartender for that. I said ok and handed her the hundred as our total was $98. I was soooooo tempted to only leave her the change as her tip but I didn't. I reluctantly left her a twenty, but she definitely did not work... To. Insure. Promptness.

Overall Food: 2 stars Service: ½ star Atmosphere: 2 stars (we were seated so far away from the music, we...

our party arrived at the restaurant and we put ourselves on the waitlist as a party of 8, 4 adults, 4 older kids. We explained that we could be split into two separate tables if necessary, whatever was fastest. The hostess was a bit rude when I told her we could do 8 or two 4 tops. The hostess wrote my number down completely wrong, thankfully I saw it and it took two tries for her to correct it. We got a text that we were on the list and we were quoted 40 minutes.

Our party walked around the shops close by and received a text at 7:20pm that we were next to be seated and to head that way and reply 1. We replied 1 to the text immediately, got a confirmation and arrived at the restaurant within 2 minutes.

Once we arrived back at the restaurant, we waited another 30 minutes and finally decided to get back in line to ask how much longer the wait would be. We were then told that you were supposed to check in with the host stand when you arrive and they had passed us up and could put us back on the list.

This doesn’t make much sense because we never got a text that our table was ready and that is the whole reason for the text service, correct? The message never said to check in with the host when we arrived back at the restaurant. She never called our name to see if we had arrived before they passed us up. We were literally sitting under the pop up tent that the hostess stand was placed under.

My husband tried to show the hostess the text and that we had replied immediately and she proceeded to be incredibly rude, defensive, shush him and shoo him away.

All of this to say, the entire time we were waiting the hostess was slow moving in general, not the friendliest and was not apologetic at all.

Thankfully we walked down the way and were able to get into The Terrace right away and had great...