Kailua Town Pub and Grill — Restaurant in Oʻahu

UPDATE: Well, no good deed goes unpunished.

We went to Kailua Town Pub this morning for our usual Sunday football and breakfast and, after ordering a drink, I was accosted by the owner’s son who asked if I was the guy who wrote the review below (6 weeks ago). I said I was and he said “You have to leave.” My response was “You and your father behaved badly and disrespectfully to your customers and I’m the one who has to leave?” His reply was to tell me I was an a$$hole and was 86’d forever.

At age 75 and after 45 years in the bar business I think I got the best of that deal.

Original review: Normally I would give Kailua Town Pub a much higher rating. I’m a “regular” NFL Sunday breakfast customer and Savannah, Sam, Emily, and the rest of the staff do a good job – cheerfully and professionally keeping the customers satisfied with decent food, drinks and service.

This morning, however, I witnessed the owner/manager (or the owner’s husband or whoever he is) sit at the bar and order steak & eggs breakfasts for both himself and his son. He apparently, however, instructed the staff to replace the usual 10–12-ounce breakfast steaks with 28-ounce Wagyu Porterhouses for Two from the menu of the (attached and family-owned but separately operated/managed) Gaslight Speakeasy.

So here we have the owner/manager/whatever, openly sitting in plain sight of a room full of breakfast diners/potential diners and eating an obviously much higher quality meal than any of them can order.

Yes, I know it’s their bar and they can do pretty much whatever they want but just because you “can,” doesn’t mean you “should,” especially when it exhibits such blatant disdain for your clientele.

If you are that disrespectful of the people who pay your bills you should at least try not to show it so visibly. Such rude displays of privilege and condescension make horrible optics, especially in a business that depends so heavily on the goodwill of their...

I'll start by saying the steak appetiser is amazing, and the buffalo wings were apparently equally as good, however the service just isn't there. The girl working behind the bar was working 10 times harder than anybody else, she had to serve all the bar customers and all the dining customers too, take payments, bring out food, serve behind the bar. I made note of the fact that my food was cooled and waiting on the side to be served for a good 5 minutes before she had the time to come back out and walk it 8 steps to my table, while the rest of the kitchen staff were sat just outside the kitchen area laughing and joking. Now I understand that kitchen staff sometimes aren't responsible for serving food, but they were just standing there watching the bar girl run around helping everybody, yet there were trays of cutlery, dirty food trays and other kitchen items all over the eating surfaces along that walkway. If those kitchen staff really have that much time to spare, and really aren't allowed to help the girl behind the bar, then they could at least tidy up their own area and make it look like an eating area instead of a storage room. At first glance, that walkway between the bar and the eating area looked like the alleyway behind a restaurant in Mumbai. The food (as I mentioned) was great, beer was cold, vibe was nice around the bar, and I like to see happy smiling staff, but they really need to tidy up before they can stand...

Menu prices are incorrect! Check your bill before you leave. The waitress told me the menu's are 2 years old..... Don't you think it's time to update them! If it costs too much, just have your customers scan a QR code, or print them out yourself and laminate them.

I've been here a few times over the years, and I must say that each time I come back I have a worse experience. I remember the last time I ordered the fish taco's and this being Hawai'i, usually it's hard to get bad fish taco's but they found a way. This time I ordered the fish and chips, and was very underwhelmed. I would say the fish AND the chips were moist on the inside and outside. The only saving grace is that they have Irish beer on the menu. The fries also had black spots on about 10% of what was served and my wife skipped eating some of them. I'm guessing they use frozen potatoes and don't inspect what they fry?

Service was ok, waitress was not very attentive or friendly, and when I asked her to change the prices from the incorrect menu. She made it seem like I should just leave it because it's an old menu.

I rarely leave bad reviews, only when multiple things go wrong do I take the time to let...