The Lanai At Mamala Bay — Restaurant in Oʻahu

We've eaten here twice after spending time at Hickam Beach. It's convenient to the beach and the patio seating looks out to the ocean. The first time we visited, they weren't very busy. Our server was nice, but service was a bit slow. The second time we visited, they were very busy and understaffed. The servers were literally running across the restaurant. I thought it was pretty surprising to hear the servers shouting curse words across the room with kids all around. The hostess walked us nearly to the table, didn't say anything, then started talking to the bartender and left. We weren't sure what table was ours and we weren't given menus, napkins, or utensils. They offer mixed tropical drinks and beer, including Kona's Longboard. The tropical drinks are decent, however if you get the "monster" drink option to share, there's hardly any alcohol (we saw maybe 1 to 1.5 ounces go in) and mostly juice. This makes the drinks extremely overpriced, especially at $25 for "monster" size. The bartender, who is also a server, was grabbing the fruit garnish and mint for mojitos with his bare hands without washing them first. There definitely needs to be improvement in food handling and sanitation practices. Between both visits, we tried several of the appetizers. The nachos are a pretty good size, however they drown them in liquid cheese and all the chips are very soggy. If they used less of the liquid cheese, the nachos would be a lot better because we thought the other toppings were good. The coconut shrimp is probably the best tasting appetizer, but is expensive for only getting 5 little shrimp (it's about $15). The vampire dip comes in a bread bowl and is extremely deceptive because the bread "bowl" isn't even hollowed out an inch deep. It was very greasy and gloopy, and the bread served with it was stale. The mozzarella sticks were by far the worst appetizer. The pieces of cheese were pretty big with pale, greasy, underfried breading. The ratio of cheese to breading combined with the oily, wet breading made it difficult to eat. Finally, we tried the key lime pie. It was good, but it was definitely more on the very sweet side, rather than tangy. I prefer a tangy key lime pie, so I wouldn't order again. If we ever decided to come here again, it would only be to grab a beer and maybe the coconut shrimp or dessert. Hopefully they learn to schedule staffing better or hire more help. I also hope they improve the quality of the food if they're going to continue charging so much. There should definitely be more hand washing or glove wearing for those making drinks or handling food, especially during...

Went here for some drinks, apps, and food after a long day at the Historical sites. Our party of six sat at the hostess counter for a few minutes before going off in search of an employee, only to find someone behind the bar “who didn’t work there”. Returning back to the hostess counter, an employee miraculously appeared as if summoned by the gods of foreseeable negativity. Two tables (crawling with ants and extremely dirty/sticky my from previous guests) were put together to accommodate our party. The waiter came by and took our drink order and a few minutes later our appetizer order. In about 10 minutes our appetizers showed up and we placed five burger orders and a pasta order. Another 10ms or so our first round of beverages manage to show up. Fast forward about 30ms I head on up to the bar to order additional beverages due to a lack of employee participation in their monetary compensated position. About 45ms after our food order was placed we brought up the lack of sustenance to our server who promptly informed us that our food would be out momentarily, considering there was a severe lack of patrons in the establishment. Another 15-20ms go by and I go off in search of the waiter and inquire about the disconnect and incompetence of the the kitchen staff because grilling some mediocre burgers and heating up some canned Alfredo sauce shouldn’t exceed 30ms, especially when there’s only 4-5 other tables with patrons in the entire establishment. The waiter informs me that their three scheduled cooks all happened to not show up/call out on the same shift and the manager(s) were in back cooking. Approximately 75-85ms after our food order five of the orders appeared, the 3 burgers having cold sides and two missing ingredients, and the pasta being far from tasteful. At this point I approach another member of the staff and express our desire to speak with the management. Our waiter came back two times to inform us the manager had been informed and then reminded yet still chose not to be a leader and deal with their catastrophic failure in management. After spending another 15ms or so I informed the waiter we would like our tabs to pay for our drinks and our apps. Collectively, the totals were more than $145 for 2 beers, 4 cocktails, and three apps. There wasn’t an apology from the server, only a “have a good day”. This isn’t necessarily the servers fault, however, failing to inform patrons about a serious kitchen SNAFU is self inflicted. The management is an abomination and should...

This restaurant has been our favorite for the past 2 years to visit every Wednesday because kids eat free with am adult meal. The past few months we have noticed and inconsistent in the food quality and professionalism by some employees but today September 8th 2021 was the last straw there were many issues that I can't just sit back and let go. Our waitress Helen was almost perfect definitely a 9/10 on her job. First issue was we had reservations at 545pm approached the host stand and who we believe was a manager said we will be seated at 545 the time of our reservation with an attitude in her voice. 2nd we rapproched the host and she sat us down at a dirty table thankfully our waitress noticed and cleaned it for us. Placed our order some common items as our o Previous visits. 3rd our Appetizer Mozzarella cheese sticks took about 20mins for them to arrive at our table at room temperature and not what we have gotten before. 4th the manager brought food to our table that we didn't order we mentioned it after she put them in front of our kids and of course kids reached and touched the fries she took them away and gave it to the correct table I was shocked that she did that. 5th we finally got our food and the quality was not what we have received in the many other visit. Fries where cold and not cooked like we have had, kids pineapple was almost to wine, fried chicken was not crispy and had an off flavor, my burger which is hard to screw up was actually warm but I could tell it sat in the warming shelf to long because my plate was very hot to the touch and the top of my bun was burnt on the top I attached a photo. There has been a downward trend of food quality not sure if new management is to blame I do seen common waiters and waitresses there every time we go but different management walking around. Positive Helen was great and the views are always great. I hope this restaurant improves or our last experience of our favorite restaurant in Hawaii will forever be a...