Homestyle Hawaiian Pub & Eatery — Restaurant in San Diego

Being a resident here for well over 35 years-I have strong love for Tierrasanta and all of our business owners here. Here is my first experience at Homestyle Hawaiian- I walked in there with my 2 sons- as soon as we walked in we were told to order our food at the door entry. It would have been nice to be given a menu and a seat first.. but ok. Both kids order an appetizer- Lumpia .... fried eggroll of some sort not cooked crispy, not sure if the inside even got heated thru.. just odd- soggy and odd. I ordered one of the specialty beers and it was warm and flat!- and I was served by a young Spanish girl.. like 12 years old who did not seem happy at all.. again.. ODD! it was uncomfortable for me- I am a 5th grade teacher, so this was just odd. I didn’t complain, I mean how can I complain about my beer to a 12 year old! Next we order the Ahi- now being a bit of a sushi queen, I can tell you I know my fish!.. this fish was 100% NOT fresh- I sent it back letting the owner know that the fish was definitely not fresh in fact it smelled like it may be going bad.. That was what seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back! She took my plate away.. and that was it.. she never came back to my table, not with a fresh Ahi plate, or an offer of something else.. Just nothing. She NEVER came back to my table! At this point I decided to finish my beer and we would head over to Islands Café, where service and food is 5 star and Terry the owner there is AH-Mazing AND they are really a Hawaiian family, and customer service is genuine. The next turn of events left me in utter disgust.. before we left, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands- when I was getting ready to go in, MO came out- Mo is the other owner (big bald guy)-as he walked out of the bathroom he took his dripping hands, slid them down his pants in a terrible effort to dry them, Sneezed/ coughed on his hands and grabbed a plate of food and brought it to a customer!! And lastly .. Grand finale! Another young Spanish female came into the restaurant she was 13 and was apologizing for not getting there earlier- both mother and father (owners) were not having it.. they both really tore into her, and after some harsh words she went to the back in tears.. it was a sad visit at Homestyle Hawaiian and I will never go there again. I encourage anyone to peek in at yelp and look at some of the reviews, do your homework before you bring your family there.. It’s just...

TLDR: Rude, stingy staff that will not make right their mistakes in serving you food WITHOUT allergens.

DO NOT EAT HERE!!!! They will mess up your order, put an allergen on your food after you specifically requested them not to, then fail to apologize or acknowledge their mistake and deny me a refund.

Back story: I’m not the type of person to leave negative reviews for businesses but I will when it’s warranted. And my experience here was so bad that they absolutely deserve it.

I placed a phone order and asked if the dish that I ordered will contain sesame seeds, and told the worker Alexis that I have an ALLERGY to sesame seeds and to please not sprinkle any on top. She quickly assured me there are no sesame seeds on it. My husband went inside to pick up the order as I waited in the car with our newborn baby. We get home, unpack the meal and guess what, there are sesame seeds ALL OVER the rice and mac salad I ordered when I specifically told her I had an allergy. I couldn’t even eat the meal that I paid for and drove 20 minutes to get.

I called Homestyle and spoke with Alexis, told her she messed up and I wanted a refund. With no apology, she passed me off to another worker named Chloe who also didn’t bother to apologize and gave me the number of the owner Amy to handle it.

So I call the owner Amy, very calmly explained what happened and asked for a refund. She said “maybe you should’ve checked the food before leaving”, as if I have the time to unpack tightly packed bags and styrofoam boxes with a crying newborn baby in the car. I said, I don’t appreciate being blamed for your restaurant’s mistake and I asked how she plans to make this right. Like the other minions that work for her, she didn’t apologize either - but she begrudgingly agreed to give a refund on my plate.

But guess what? She lied and never gave me the refund causing a complete waste of my time and money.

For the record, I have experienced a restaurant making a genuine mistake by putting an allergen on my food before - and when I called to let them know, they quickly and graciously gave me a full refund on the entire order without even batting an eye. So there IS a rightful and kind way of handling mistakes, something that these people are clearly not capable of.

This place sucks, customer service is awful. Save your time and go somewhere else. They’re extremely rude and stingy and this isn’t how you get...

The food was the highlight! Service was woefully slow. Waitress really should get a notebook and pen. She took our food order and returned two additional times to ask what we ordered. The appetizer came AFTER we finished our entree. One person ordered a second drink, when we ordered a dessert. When the waitress brought the dessert, she stated,"...oh, you ordered a drink, I will be back with it....". Two couples came in with five unruly children. They placed four boys, perhaps preschool age at a table beside of us WITHOUT adult supervision. The four "adults" and a small girl sat at another table. The boys proceeded to run about in the restaurant to various tables bothering other customers. One boy dumped his food on the floor. An adult went to the table, collected the food from the floor, put the food and tray on the table and told the kid to eat his food. After the kids ate their food, back to running around in the restaurant. When the Dole whip was given to the kids, two of them ate their Dole whip while standing beside two seated ladies, and kids were slinging their food around from their spoons. The two ladies left the restaurant and the unsupervised children proceeded to climb into the chairs, vacated by the ladies and proceeded to playing with displays in the window and table. It really is a shame the children were not supervised. Even more pitiful the unsupervised children ruined several other people/customers' dinner experience. I hope the restaurant's management gets enough business from those two couples and their children to offset the loss of other customers. The restaurant management seems absent or unwilling to control the experience within their restaurant. Based upon the poor service and unruly atmosphere, I will never return to...