Quito O.
Yelp
Wow, did this place go downhill.
It had been roughly 8 or so years since I last stepped foot inside Kona Brewery, and while the restaurant itself hasn't physically changed, the menu and the service have tanked. Started out putting our names in as we didn't bother making reservations. The host told us it would be a 20-25 minute wait, which is fine. I texted the rest of our party and told them no need to rush as the wait time was nearly half an hour.
Lo and behold, literally seconds after sending the text, I get a text from the host stand saying our table is ready. Umm...ok. We get seated near the back (the views of the marina are still great) but the restaurant itself seemed dimmer than I remembered it being, and I remembered it being pretty darn dim. Sat down and immediately noticed that all the wooden surfaces (benches, tables, highchairs) were all very sticky and just nasty.
Menu has changed A LOT. Gone is the pepperoni alii'i pizza (literally the only pizza I ever ordered from here) as well as the roasted garlic app and some other key menu items I remembered enjoying before. Ended up getting a paniolo burger (BBQ sauce, onion rings, bacon, cheese), my wife got a bacon blue burger but subbed the bacon for mushrooms. Our sides options were pretty sad as well as they only had chips, rice, Mac salad or "seasonal veggies". When asked what the season veggies were, our waitress simply responded "green beans".
The kids menu was even sadder as it was limited to chicken tenders, pepperoni rolls, pasta, or a slice of pizza....same sides. No drink. My kids both opted for a slice of pepperoni pizza.
The food was....meh. Nothing great, but also not terrible. Service could have been better as our waitress only checked on us every 20 minutes or so, which was kind of ok because we were meeting up with a friend who had moved away years ago so we go a lot of time to catch up.
I didn't bother taking any pictures of the food because, honestly, the presentation was pretty pathetic. My burger was falling over despite being skewered with a wooden dowel to hold it up (it was seemingly stabbed in as the burger was falling over) and the handful of chips was just thrown on the plate.
The beer is still cold and fresh and honestly the best part of the experience.
Everything else is pretty sub par.
Probably wont be back.
Definitely don't go if there's no breeze. The ceiling fans in there do nothing to move the air around and it was disgustingly hot and uncomfortable by the end of our visit.