Lovely view, mediocre food, bad service. Save your money and go somewhere else. Â We sat ourselves and then waited a super long time for anyone to talk to us. We finally flagged someone down to be told everyone thought someone else was going to help us. But it was as if the waitress was trying to ignore us since every time we tried to catch someone's eye they looked away or just kept walking. When we did finally get our order in it took forever. After seeing the other reviews it seems this is on par with their usual service.
Review Source:On April 29,2013 I visited LuLu's. Malia C was my bartender. She charged me more than twice what I ordered. Putting other people's drinks on my tab without my consent.
When I refused to pay for what I had not ordered she had 2 thugs take me out back and physically assault me.
Luckily the police showed up and stopped it but still made me pay for what I had not ordered.
When I refused to tip her she looked at me like she had no idea why...
Very unfriendly... If you're gonna have a "local" bar you should probably get it off a tourist strip...
They'll be out of business soon, I can assure you of that.
I used to like this place and will admit they have a decent happy hour, but the bartender girl with the smelled a fart stinkface just made us not feel welcome. I don't know, maybe she is used to the ex-fratboy loudmouths that seem to frequent there, but we just kind of got this unfriendly vibe just sitting at the nearly empty bar.
It's a shame because we were planning on each drinking a few drinks and we are good tippers. You are better off going to Humpy's right next door.
Service was super slow and there was only 5 people in the place. Â I expected this to be like Lulu's in Waikiki but holy moly it is not even close! Â My hubbie had the crab breakfast sandwich -- disgusting. Â It was not made fresh it came from the freezer frozen and it didn't taste good -- the texture was like mush. Â Even the potatoes were questionable. Â I had the breakfast quesadilla made with eggs, cheese and onions. Â The eggs were tasteless and mushy. Â The onions in it were raw. Â My taste buds were not happy. Â Note to self: Â never again. Â I rarely say "yuck" but this food was gross. Â
The Lulu's team in Waikiki needs to train the Kona Team. Â If they want to improve, have a server with a friendly personality and who is quick ( I thought the server was on vacation). Â Also, teach the cook how to saute onions in butter so they are caramelized and how to make scrambled eggs with a dash of seasoning. Â Have some pride in the food you send out. Â Fresh ingredients does not = freshly thawed from the freezer and made in the mainland.
Holy heck.... the nightlife on the Big Island isn't much but this place had the most eclectic assembly of human brings I've ever seen. DJ played music and the mix of locals, drunks, and tourists was outstanding. Good for people watching but not for the easily offended. Saw a 20-something girl slap the #@^# out of a guy on the dance floor. Watched large Hawaiian women shake it to Nikki Minaj tunes. and by "it" i mean... you go girl!!!
Try it on a Saturday night if you're in the right mood. Arrive ready to drink and dance. The kitchen looked dirty. But that's how I like my dance clubs.
We ate at a lot of places during our vacation on the Big Island, and this place was one of my favorites. The menu has a lot of creative food combinations and everything was incredible and freshly prepared. The service was good (considering there was only one person taking orders and bringing food out).
I ordered the "clogger" sandwich. This hamburger was incredible and huge... It is a hamburger patty that has been beer battered and fried, placed on a grilled bun served with cheese sauce, brown gravy and bacon. It was incredible and despite how it sounds, it was light and skillfully cooked so that you did not even taste grease from being beer battered and fried.
We also had the "big as your head nachos" and they were literally as big as your head and delicious.
I would diffidently return there... this place rocked.
Solid bar food. The service isn't that good here, so be prepared. The nachos were great, I definitely recommend them. Their fajitas were okay, the shrimp and avocado tacos were okay. The hot wings were good although tiny. Lots of beers on tap. They played 80's music all night the time I was there.
Update: the friend I went with thinks she got food poisoning from the chicken fajitas.
This restaurant was actually a bit of a disappointment to me. Â I was pumped to have a burger, but the quality of beef was just not all that great. Â I think they might need the funky toppings to disguise this little detail. Â
We were in on a slow night, and it still took five minutes for someone to even bring us a menu, and another 30-40 minutes to get served food.
All around, not a great experience. Â Save yourself the pain and go to Bongo Ben's downstairs instead.
Apparently, the fact that this is simply an ocean-front bar & grill was lost on many reviewers who expected something this place is not. Good drinks, moderate beer selection and some very creative burgers. Chicken sandwhich was really good as were the various fish tacos. The main thing here is the burgers and their random assortment of toppings: mac n cheese; pizza sauce and toppings; pulled pork; etc. Most interesting had to be The Clogger(deep fried patty with bacon, cheese sauce and gravy) and The Slaughterhouse 5( topped with pepperjack, pepperoni, ham, bacon & pulled pork). A lot of locals late night. Personally, I like the dollar bills with personal messages stapled to the wall. Adds some character.
Review Source:We ate here several times while visiting Kona and it was consistently good food and drinks. The view is also quite nice but that makes the place very touristy. The service was somewhat slow although accurate but then thats sorta the Hawaiin way, me thinks.Try their breakfast- what a suprise! Â The food was excellent and the weather ofcourse is perfect but the real treat was watching the sun coming up! Sunset on the water is also fabulous.
Review Source:I am a big an of GREAT burgers, and my favorite burger hands down is always a black and bleu. Well, this place does an awesome one, they call it their blackened Cajun bleu, comes with fries, and is $11.95. This is about as good as a burger gets, seriously. The rest of your party had fishi and chips, peel and eat shrimp, and k
The keiki shrimp basket. Every plate was wiped. Lean, except mine, burger was too big to finish! Loved the atmosphere, location, staff, can't recommend it highly enough!
We were from the mainland and barhopping the area and this was our last stop.
This is a biased review because my wallet got stolen at the upstairs bar.
I can blame my stupidity (wasn't drunk, and I sobered really fast having realized what happened), and for turning my back for a minute then *poof* it was gone off the bar counter. But I felt sorely cheated at the way they handled the situation. I became hysterical because I was worried at not having my ID when I had to fly back home. Nobody there cared. I left for 10 minutes to look outside. I went back upstairs through the back and knocked on the door (they were closed now)- they ignored me still. A cook came out to tell me again the wallet wasn't there. I asked to leave my information in case anything was found. He gave me a food wrapper with chili residue to write on.
At Hilo airport where I had to explain I lost my ID at Lulu's, security nodded sympathetically and said, "Oh yeah, thats a bad place." Oh yes, I am still sour.
We walked in early for dinner and after ordering 2 drinks and an order of Tuna tartare my husband decided to go to the bathroom. When he came back I could see in his face that he looked green from inhaling whatever was in that bathroom.
When he told me about that I started looking around, noticed that our server didn't really look clean and that the bar where we were sitting was sticking like glue. Â It's ok, I'm a trooper so I just said out loud "oh, this place it's a dive! It's dirty but it's fun!" Â But when our drinks and food came I have to confess I was afraid of eating that... We ended up sharing the plate , and leaving the drinks half done on the bar. Â We might go back only for people watching or "dancing". ( haven't heard about places to go dancing around here yet) but yeah, avoid this place if you are afraid of getting a stomach bug or something .
Note from Jeremy : The size of the drinks were ridiculous.
One of my favorite places on Big Island for a burger and a beer. Â The people watching is second-to-none and you can't beat the location. Â The burgers are decent. Â I'm a big burger snob so you can't pile on the toppings until you've mastered the meat paddy, but there's a big enough variety here that everyone can find something they like. Â The last time I went, my kiddo had the Mac Daddy burger which was just a burger with kraft mac and cheese on it. Â My friend had a burger with a crab cake on it, which she said was amazing and I had the Dick Butkis burger, regular hamburger with peanut butter on it! Â Trust me, branch out and try it, you'll be glad you did. Â
Besides the burgers, they've got a decent breakfast menu and cheap beer prices. Â What more do you want?
Wow, what a tacky-looking place. Â Not sure if all those $1 bills stapled to the roof and ceiling are real, but it reminds me of a certain infomercial from the 1990s (remember that guy with the dollar bills attached to his shirt?)
The food items are definitely a creative spin on typical diner food. For example, there was a mac & cheese burger there which I would've loved to try had I had the time.
With that said, I must say I was disappointed with the burger they called "The Clogger" aka "The Double-Flusher". Â I'm sure your imagination probably ran as wild as mine did. Â It turned out to be a burger with a deep-fried patty. Â While novel, the burger was just regular-sized. Â I could've eaten 2 of these entire platters.
Service was average, which is fine in my books. Â Supposedly there's Wi-Fi here, but it was down the day we came here.
Came here for lunch after arriving on the Big Island. I kind of liked it. Our waitress however was SCARY! She was a tiny little thing with an attitude that would make a cage fighter nervous. I was super nice to her just because I was afraid to piss her off. She brought the food pretty fast but we were the ONLY people eating in the whole place, the rest of the people were drinking at the bar. After she brought the food she disappeared to god knows where only to resurface to bring  us our check. Fine with me since she was scary like I said.  The food was pretty good but we were starving after our flight so I would have eaten anything at this point.
The decor here is kind of cute, you sit up on the second floor so you can people watch while you eat. I guess I would return here again if I am ever on the Big Island again. Hopefully that waitress will be long gone.
********
WE SPLIT OUR BILL IN 1/2 EACH FAMILY PAYING HALF. Â WE SIGNED CREDIT CARD RECEIPTS SHOWING THE BILL WAS SPLIT. Â TODAY AFTER REVIEWING OUR ACCOUNT THEY CHARGED EACH FAMILY THE FULL AMOUNT TALK ABOUT OVER PAYING. Â I HEARD KONA IS EXPENSIVE BUT ITS FAR MORE EXPENSIVE WHEN YOU PAY DOUBLE!!!!!!!
Good food and right in the heart of Kona. Getting 3 stars because the service kind of sucked. Â
Its a seat yourself type of place. Â We seated ourselves (per the downstairs hostess) and waited over 30 minutes with no attention. Â We were a group of nine and were able to find something for everyone and the prices were not too crazy, granted we were in a very touristy part of Kona. They serve so many items, great steak sandwich, peel and eat shrimp, root beer floats, hot wings and does not matter what you wear.
Portions were pretty big, the Nachos are massive and tasty! Â Just make sure once you have the waitress attention you put your order in fast.
Were able to keep the kids occupied by having them personalize a dollar and staple it to the walls.
Lulu's is perfect if you are very daring in what you put in your stomach. Or if you love nonexistent service. Or if you hate quality live music. Or if you truly enjoy sitting next to a couple of ice heads who haven't showered in months, yelling at each other in gibberish.
Take it from a local - avoid this place.
Really cool place! Deff stop by if you're in the area.
LOCATION: Nice spot on 2nd floor on the main street next to the water. Nice view of the waves and sunset!
DECOR: Very cool. The walls in the bar/restaraunt were all covered with dollar bills in which tourists would write their names on them and staple them to the walls. A nice fun place for dinner or drinksm deff a casual attire.
FOOD/DRINK: Really great bacon cheeseburger + fries! Probably one of the best I have had! Hearty burger, bigger size then usual sided with thick cut fries. Pretty good Mai Tai's available also!
SERVICE: average, friendly waitress, brought our food out quickly!
The food here is an absolute joke. The menu is disgusting. They actually have Spaghettios and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese on the menu. Â (This would be okay if the price was decent and you were traveling with little kids. Â Who wants to pay $10 for canned Spaghettios? Even our waiter told us not to order food). This place is filthy dirty too. Â Don't use the restroom!
It's probably fun to watch sports games here. I could see myself ending up here after a few drinks to hang out and cheer at the televisions. If you do come here, order your drinks straight up or get beer (mixed drinks are super watered down). Eat first at Humpy's next door (same prices but way way way higher quality food) then come enjoy your game and maybe have some tequila shots.
No fuss, no muss $5 breakfast while on vacation in Hawaii- what more could you ask for??
I had a very good breakfast quesadilla and my boyfriend tried a breakfast that included Portuguese sausage, eggs and a scoop of rice. With tax, our bill was $10.42! What a bargain!
Nice service, very quick! Great location, Â Excellent view! Â Very no nonsense, though, as we were leaving, I heard someone ask the server what he could get that included fruit. The server's response? "we don't got no fruit here".
Also, before you leave, take 5 minutes to walk around and check out all the stuff on the walls! Hilarious and very cool!
I was looking for a sports bar to watch the Bears monday night footbal game. Â I randomly found Lulu's as I was looking for another sports bar next door. Â I am glad I ended up in Lulu's instead of the other bar. Â
The bartender was a cubs fan that had lived in Chicago. Â Service was very friendly and attentive, lots of TV's, and sound was good to watch the game.
Not much more I could ask for in a sports bar.
Additionally, I had a poke wrap which was actually very good.
If you're under 25 and just want a place to get drunk with a great view, this is your place. The Clogger burger (deep fried) or the Mac n cheese burger (what?). My burger was like TV Dinner salsbury steak...spongy "meat" on a bun.
Server was cool and friendly. Â Beer choices were kinda boring considering Humpy's next door, who had the same view and better food and better beer selection.
My bf and I came here on a Sunday morning and the environment was absolutely fun and rowdy. The staffs were really nice and funny.
We ordered some eggs, pancakes, sausages, toast and some spam. Typical breakfast but it was yummy! It wasn't too crowded when we were there so we got our food quick.
I wish I'd came back for some lunch or dinner but we didn't get the chance to. Minus 1 star because the bathrooms are shared with other restaurants and it was dirty. Other than that the food, view and environment was cool!
Decent food. Decent drinks. Decent service. FABULOUS location, all without being too overpriced. I loved coming here after a full morning of surfing when I lived locally, and I enjoyed coming back in for a lavaflow, a hefeweisen, and the fish tacos.
By the way.
The fish tacos are really the only reason I went back to Lulu's. They're that good. Chipotle mayo and burrito-style fish wrap? YES PLEASE.
If I could rate this place without a star, I would.
Let's see.., it's a great piece of real estate for a restaurant. Â I guess that warrants the one star. Otherwise how was the food? I wouldn't know. How was the drinks? I wouldn't know. How was the service? Non existent!!
The place is supposed to be open late, it's a restaurant-bar for crying out loud. We got there at 8:15 pm and the place was pretty empty. Meanwhile, Bongo Ben's just below Lulu's is bumping with patrons and a live band.
With no host to greet us, we seated ourselves at a (dirty) table right along their pretty balcony looking out towards Alii Drive and then we waited, and waited, and waited and, oh yeah, we waited.
Could we at least get a menu? Several times we tried to make eye contact with someone working there with no luck. I felt like they were going out of their way to NOT notice us. Ok... be that way! We left.
Why did we bother to seat ourselves in the first place if it was practically empty? We were trying to give the place the benefit of a doubt since it got an Ono rating from the book, The Big Island Revealed. Clearly other Yelpers were steered here by the book as well. While the book is really helpful, I guess you can't win them all.
My wife and I first came to LuLu's in 2003. Â Back then it had slightly above average food, decent drinks, Â a rockabilly atmosphere, and a friendly waitstaff.
Here 6 years later the food was HORRIBLE. (It actually made us a bit sick later) Â The drinks were poorly put together, the atmosphere has lost all of its original style, and the waitstaff was distracted at best.
That will be our last trip to LuLu's
Hmm, the drinks were not the best and the pineapple was lacking in the Mai Tais. The service was good but the cocktails sucked. Maybe try the beer. Bottled might avoid their apparent watering of things.
The seared ahi was actually flash-fried in oil. Ugh, even if it tasted okay enough. The veggie burger was decent and the fries were okay. My girlfriend had a little meal that sated her (pork was good, according to her). Still, it was not fun and they had more televisions running than customers hanging out.
The service was decent and the decor was interesting. People apparently leave dollar bills here with little messages on them. Looks weird and probably is just more money they did not earn, so we skipped it.
This would get a higher grade  if the pole-dancing pole in the corner was occupied by my girl, but... the locale did not inspire her. two stars, no more.
The sunset view isn't the best (unless you like watching the sun set between powerlines) but the food was great! Ordered loco moco for $10 and a pound of shrimp for $20. And beer. And it all tasted SO GOOD. The over easy eggs ended up over hard, but the hamburger patties were great! They sure know how to do burgers, and it showed in their loco moco. Yeah it was pricey for loco moco, but that's also how much it is at other tourist traps.
The pound of shrimp was delicious. 40 shrimp, either hot or cold, and either spicy or... something else. Got hot spicy shrimp and had an awesome time peeling and eating them and washing it all down with beer.
This place is awful. Â It is everything i didn't want in bar in Hawaii. Â Complete tourist trap. Â Unfortunately, it was the closest place to my hotel and we were going stir crazy. Â I couldn't dance (not that i particularly wanted to dance to the top 40 hits and the amount of sleaze on the dance floor). Â The creepy male to female ration was about 7:1. Â There were girls puking in the sink in the bathroom. Â I had a headache. Â
The icing on the cake was running into the guy who took my x-rays 2 nights prior. Â He tried to take me home. Â Enough said.
If you go to Kona, go to Rio's two doors down instead and skip Lulu's.
Nice view. The service was pretty shitty all around. We walked in around sunset on a Friday night. Every table in the house has a sunset ocean view and we asked for an open table up front. Yes, it could've seated four people and we were only a party of two, but there was NO ONE else waiting for a table. The sign read "seat yourself" and as we were about to do so, a hasty waiter approached us trying to usher us elsewhere. We ended up sitting at the table of our choice, but seriously, what is the deal??
Our waiter was pretty absent-minded, definitely not timely. The pre-mixed frozen margaritas are nothing but sugary slushees. Tasty, but not the famous marg I was out for. When we requested a hand-made top shelf not-too-sweet on the rocks marg, it came back with LITERALLY zero alcohol. Maybe the "not too sweet" thing threw the bartender off, or maybe it was part of the waiter's conspiracy since we were a little too particular. Either way, we sent it back, and took another slushy in lieu. Far from worth the $10. They even tried to take back our souvenir cups! C'mon, we were camera-toting tourists! Of course we wanted our dinky plastic cups that say "Cirrhosis by the Sea."
Oh, right, they have food too. The burger we ordered was great even though it was overcooked; still managed to be juicy. (Probably just grease, but flavorful grease. Butterburger anyone?) The "black and blue" caesar salad we ordered was...okay. Overlooking that I was brought the wrong salad the first time, the fish was kind of lacking in flavor and the portion was small for the price.
Didn't have high expectations for the bar food and they definitely didn't impress. The only reason to come here is the view, and even then, try to ignore the power lines.
We went here on our last night after a week in Kona. Got the recommendation from The Big Island Revealed and chose it because it sounded good without breaking the bank.
Seat yourself. We stood around for a while before we noticed the sign (at the other entrance from where we walked up). Nice view of Ali'i Drive and the inside ain't bad either. It's open-air with lots of lights/decorations and plenty of signed $1 bills on the walls. My boyfriend had fun watching the surfing on the TVs.
Our server was a bit curt at first, but warmed up as the meal went on. My boyfriend ordered the wings with their super hot sauce and the server told him it would make him sick, but he got it on the side and could tolerate it. But agreed it was definitely hot. We shared the crab cakes appetizer, which was decent but not amazing.
I'm kinda new to eating fish (after being vegetarian for 7-8 years) and ventured to order my first real fish platter (or whatever you want to call it). It was fish on a pile of garlic wasabi mashed potatoes, in a buttery sauce topped with diced tomatoes. So good. I can't remember the official name. Would definitely recommend it.
Got Mac Nut Pie for dessert. Good, but I'd probably skip it next time. I'm not a huge fan of pecan pie though, so if you like pecan pie, you'd probably love this. My boyfriend got a burger and I tried the fries, which were tasty.
Drinks were good enough (but not wonderful) with just the right amount of booze to give you a little buzz but not get you wasted before dinner arrives.
Oh, Lulu's. Â What can I say. Â Their logo says "Cirrhosis by the Sea". Â
This is pretty much the place to go at night in Kona. Â That is, if you're looking for a party. Â It's an open air bar right on Alli Dr. Â You can watch the waves crashing right across the street and the breeze blowing through is a godsend. Â They have an extensive menu if you're looking for food, but I think it's mostly visited for their selection of beers and booze. Â The crowd is mostly local, but there's always plenty of visitors hanging out as well. Â There is a pool table and a big dance floor. Â They have two bars, one of which is fairly new, and they have live music all the time. Â The bar is plastered in dollar bills signed by the patrons of the past. Â They also have quite the collection of "autographs" of all the famous people who have visited Lulu's. Â
It gets crazy in here! Â On a good night it's packed to the brim. Â The crowd is loud and intimidating actually and its hard to find a spot on the dance floor. Â Pretty much everyone who lives in Kona, and parties, will be here almost every night of the week. Â Sunny, the bouncer, is awesome! Â Great guy, but don't get on his bad side. Â The bartenders are all great and work hard to keep you happy, and completely toasted! Â
If you've lived in Kona for a while, I'm sure you're totally over Lulu's. Â If you just moved to Kona, I'm sure this is where you hang from time to time. Â And if you're visiting Kona, it's worth it to just go feel the vibe. Â
Good ol' Lulu's.
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