Kona Bay Cafe — Restaurant in Lantana

I recently had brunch with my best friend for the first time at Kona Bay. I was so excited because I had heard good things about their menu and food. Everything was delightful, including the service. Upon requesting the check, the waitress gave us ONE receipt to sign which was the Merchant Copy, but no Customer Copy for us to keep. I was skeptical about not receiving the Customer Copy, and so went ahead and took a screenshot of my receipt, just in case. My friend and I split the check, and we "rounded up" the tip to make it an even 20.00 each.

Well, two days later, when my bank charged me for the meal at Kona Bay, I was charged a different amount than I had written--the amount was NOT rounded up. I wanted to give them the benefit of this being an honest mistake, and so I called my friend to ask her to check her bank statement--sure enough, she had also been charged a different amount. Mind you, we are talking a few cents difference, but that is not the point. Why would someone change the amount on the receipt? So, I contacted the restaurant and left a message for the owner to contact me. It has now been two weeks, and several messages later, and no response.

So, I have to write this negative review. I have heard many stories about restaurants engaging in the crooked practice of changing the amount on a customer's receipt. These cents or dollars add up when you are talking about over a thousand customers per week. I have sent so many people to Kona Bay in the past, and will never recommend them again. If they cannot have the decency to call me back and address my concerns, then they have lost me as a customer and any future recommendations. I don't think they will care as they seem be doing quite well, but people need to know what they do to customers that trust them. Shame on...

DO NOT eat at the Kona Bay Café on Lantana Rd.

I was just there during the brunch rush, accompanying two friends who are elderly women, one of whom uses a walker.

We waited a modest amount of time to get seated. They finally seated us in a dingy, neglected back room.

We waited ... and waited ... and waited.

Finally, I asked a teenaged busboy who was cleaning a table next to ours to let our server know that we were ready. That was after we had sat for 10 minutes.

In another 10 minutes, we decided that this place was not for us. They clearly didn’t care about serving us, that was certain.

We got up to leave, and I wrote a note, which I left on the table:

“You lost out on a 25% tipper because you left us sitting here for 20 minutes without so much as showing your face. And this place is a MESS!”

Just as I was getting up to walk out, a girl came up and asked if she could get me something to drink.

I said, “No—we’re out! We’ve sat here for 20 minutes and we never ever saw your face.”

She said, “Sorreeee ... have a nice day.”

😕

On top of all that. There were wrappers from stuff under our table by our feet, and the hallway leading in/out of the back room we were in had liquid spilled all over the floor, and no one came to wipe it up in all that time.

I saw the menu and I saw people’s food, and it looked quite good. But the place just seemed dirty. It struck me as the sort of place that Gordon Ramsay would come into and discover that the kitchen was a filthy mess.

I will not go back there. I recommend you don’t go...

I’ve walked or driven past this place dozens of times and it’s always crowded so I decided to try it with my husband and our friend who drove up from Fort Lauderdale. It’s free parking and we scored the first spot in the lot, but that’s where the positivity ends. We had lunch around noon so it was typical Florida heat and humidity. No AC inside and the fans outside don’t rotate at all. That can be overlooked with good food, and service, but this place has neither.

After delivering the most basic of orders incorrectly THREE times (it was only a club soda and pea soup!), we were still hoping for a decent experience. My husband‘s fish and chips was not appetizing. They use the same batter that they do for chicken fingers so it was more like fish fingers. My BLT was edible, nothing to write home about. Our server was nonexistent. She came to take our order, and she didn’t come back again until the lunch orders were ready. No water refills or a care in the world. There were a lot of empty tables, so it’s not like she couldn’t handle the crowd. To be blunt, she sucked and idk how she has a job. I don’t know how this place gets good reviews unless people are just used to substandard mediocre crap food, and garbage service. The fact that they call themselves the Kona Bay Café is an insult to Hawaii. There’s zero ALOHA at this café. Avoid it at all costs! Won’t ever return and should’ve gone to Key Lime (my...