Lee's Hawaiian Islander — Restaurant in Lyndhurst

Never have I ran home so fast (after stopping at BK for some "ACTUAL" food) to come and write a review on a restaurant. My husband and I came here on a Saturday night because we both haven't been in over 15 years and figured to give it a try.

When we walked in, an elderly man was waiting for a table for just him. The host told him no, it would be over an hour wait. But when we told him we only had two, he told us it was only a 15 minute wait. We waited in the bar area, which was completely cramped, and one of the waitresses/managers, kept pushing through, calling her staff a bunch of idiots and stupid. Right to their faces in front of customers.

We waited about 15 minutes & then seated in the farthest corner table in the entire restaurant. No one came to take our drink orders or anything for a good 10-15 minutes, when the same lady who was calling her staff stupid came and took our drink orders. We got our drinks and then were left alone again for a while.

She finally came back over and asked us what we wanted. We ordered a Pu-Pu Platter, and then two regular entrees. My husband asked for her recommendation on one of the entrees and she flat out said "It's not that good, but it's your choice". Then he ordered a chicken dish and she again was like "Ok, so now you want chicken?" then took our menus and left. We waited a bit and then a giant plate of ribs was thrown on our table by this same woman who said "This is what you're getting first because it's ready." We assumed maybe they ran out of the platters for the Pu-Pu Platters, so we ate the ribs.

Then another waiter brought out our main entrees, which were both cold, and said he'd be right back with the side of rice. The rice never came. We tried to get someone's attention for a good 5 minutes, and we finally got someone and we said we never got our appetizer or rice. He asked who our server was and we told him the woman with Grey hair, and he rolled his eyes and said he was going to take care of it. Then the woman came over, sat down in our booth next to me and said "What did I mess up? Do you want to slap me?" I told her what we were missing, and then she asked us who we brought this up to and we told her the other waiter, to which she also rolled her eyes and just got up and left. We finally got the male server back and he apologized, and we said we really at this point just wanted to wrap up our things and leave, we were extremely annoyed. He understood and bagged our items (along with the rice we still had waited for) and said the check was coming. The woman once again came over, and showed me that she took off the Pu-Pu Platter but charged us for a large app of Ribs (since we did in fact eat them). For two meals that were cold, ribs which we then learned were not even intended to be delivered to our table by another staff member, and one small sized seltzer (which was $4 by the way) the bill came out of almost $80!!

My husband and I went up to pay at the register and the guy at the counter asked how everything was. I said "Honestly, we had a lot of issues and we were not impressed". He then threw out every excuse in the book, saying he was short staffed (which you could tell they were), one of his cooks was threatening to quit, another was on a plane to Hong Kong, and that Biden was our president. He then kept going on about how he couldn't wait to sell the place, he was so over it, couldn't wait to get out, just extremely unprofessional in how you speak to a paying customer. To spend almost $100 for two people when the evening was an absolute train wreck is an abomination and disgusting. The wait staff are so unprofessional, especially the grey hair woman waitress/manager. You could honestly tell the rest of her staff did not like her either by their interactions. It was so uncomfortable watching her degrade her employees.

The theming is there and has potential, but my husband and I will 1,000% never ever be back to this restaurant. Our fries at BK from down the road after this dinner were better than our entire meal we got from Lee's...

I've only been to Lee's a few times only because of the distance of it from my house. I haven't been there in over a decade and have been aching to go back, especially after Lun Wah (which was MUCH closer to my house) permanently closed. I needed a tiki fix! My husband and I decided to make the 40 minute drive and go for an early dinner tonight with our children. We were not disappointed. The ambiance was as fantastic and cozy as ever. The drinks were delicious and delightfully strong without tasting horrifically strong. They had layers of flavor, not just the burn of alcohol. My husband was excited to have Chinese restaurant tea again, something that's been hard to come by in recent years. My children shared a pu pu platter. They loved EVERYTHING that was served on that platter and, as I expected, it was so filling, they couldn't finish it. I had the Szechuan shrimp which exceeded my expectations. I swooned at the smell. There was the perfect amount of heat and the spices used in it were fantastic. The shrimp themselves tasted fresh and were cooked just right. So tender! My husband had the barbeque lobster. He RAVED about it. I can't attest to the quality or flavor myself but he said it was "fantastic". It certainly looked fantastic! (And enormous!) And the staff... What a lovely crew! So polite, helpful (especially to indecisive individuals such as myself), and attentive. I hope it continues to stay in business for many years to come. These Polynesian restaurants are a dying breed and the pandemic took it's toll on the few remaining in NJ. I promised my family tonight that even it's quite a trek just to go to dinner, we WILL go more often than once per decade. A...

After having eaten at the Clifton, NJ location many times, we finally tried the Lyndhurst, NJ location (as the one in Clifton is no longer there).

Although the food was decent enough, the rest of the experience left something to be desired. It was crowded and we hadn't made a reservation so we expected a bit of a wait. But, we didn't expect the 90 minute wait that followed. It became obvious during that time that the staff has no real idea how to deal with a busy eating establishment. There was only one bus person and he wasn't cleaning tables (not sure what he was doing, honestly) so the hostess had to do it instead. Every time she would announce that a table was ready for the next waiting party, she'd follow up with, "Wait a minute, I have to go clean the table." She also refused to estimate the wait time.

People who came in after us were seated before us. When we finally did get seated, there were no napkins or cutlery in our table. The service wasn't exactly fast either.

Finally, there was Karaoke going on almost from the time we got there and a lot of the "singers" were pretty awful.

I liked the Tiki atmosphere but I don't think it's been updated for decades. It felt very '70s.

Anyway, their popular Pu Pu Platter was quite good, but the entrees were just ordinary. The drinks were expensive and the whole experience left my wife and me exhausted.

Not sure if we'll return but, if we do, we'll make a reservation first and ensure that it's not...