Kalapaki Joe’s

Horrible service, didn’t even ask us how the food was, it was horrible, way overcooked fish sandwich, way over cooked burger, bread was stale, will not go again, ever, Sumos should move back into this space.

This location has been CLOSED by the C&C …
Red tape — remodeling without permit…

Service was so bad. Arrived 5:30 pm. Food order taken 6pm after I got up and flagged down several servers/​staff. Complete cluster. No one in charge. No one concerned. I would have rated this a 1 but the food was good except for the ahi poke. The ahi poke needs work. The burgers were great and the steamed clams were also good. Jody, hire a manager for the place. Some staff seemed to try but overall no urgency. Watched tables come in, get seated, no service and leave. Kristy was nice and tried hard.

We disregarded the 3 star ratings because we were starving. We sat ourselves down and waited and waited for the waitress to take our order. Pretty slow service but when the drinks came along with the food we were pleasantly surprised. Everyday 3−6pm is happy hour and most drinks were $ 3-​$ 5 and all appetizers were $ 2 off. We had buffalo wings for 25 cents each!!! And they were good! We ordered ahi and avocado, fries, cabbage pork and wings. Definitely coming back for a snack but don’t expect to be waited on immediately.

Quick and Easy Walk from the Marriott. Typical sports bar with ocean view. Actually ended up here twice (first time was so enjoyable) and will be back next time we are in Lihue. Bartender/​Server/​everything ‘Nilo’ was great, treated us like family and his recommendations on food and drink worked out. A singe person is not eating the surfer nachos, just way too much food so share with your friends. Prices are on low side for Lihue and nice craft beer selection. They also have a large selection of custom cocktails several that were huge hits with our group. Menu is large so everyone can easily find something to grind on. Lots of tvs to catch up on sports. We actually watched the superbowl here and they seem to show all the UFC fights. Go on in and see NILO.

3 stars for nice employees otherwise not worth the time. NIGHTMARE!
Short details: I was on island for a few weeks for business so tried many places.
While we had discovered a few gems, we tried «Joe’s» and it is not a gem.
30 minute wait to enter but in fairness we got there near the end of happy hour. (VERY BAD PLANNING on my part)
20 minute wait for a server just for drink orders (Happy hour is now over. no worries)
The group next to us was so intoxicated and LOUD we asked for another table. The place was packed so no love on that request. (apparently alcohol causes temporary deafness so yelling at the top of your lungs is now required when talking to the person seated directly next to you)
The food was bland and not even warm to hot when it arrived ANOTHER 35 minutes later! The mixed drinks very weak (Probably still on the happy hour routine) ordered a draft. not only luke warm but expensive in my eyes.
What did I learn at Joe’s?
If ya wanna but staggering drunk, go for happy hour!
If you wanna eat, find anything else. If you are a trust fund baby or money is no object, you will LOVE the place. If it is the ABC has colder beer and better food for the price

We went here for a late lunch before hitting the beach because my Kama’aina parents-​in-​law recommended it. It was a complete disaster and ended up taking two hours for lunch. We literally had a minute to spare on the two hour free parking. Ridiculous. The waitress was buzzing around but never once stopped at our table to check how we were. We had to flag her down for everything, drink refills, extra napkins, even had to ask for the check twice before the *hostess* finally brought it over. I have a one year old toddler who is normally excellent in restaurants, but the whole ordeal took so damn long I had to take him down to look at the train setup by the toy store TWICE. (It’s really cute, check it out if you’re over that way).
We shared an appetizer and had an entrée each. It was about 45 minutes wait for each of them, with no explanation or update on the status of our order from our invisible waitress.
The other annoying thing was we picked this place because we could sit on a lanai and enjoy the weather while watching the football game. Kinda strange, I know, to watch TV on vacation, but we don’t have live TV at home so seeing his beloved Cowboys play is a treat for my hubby. We picked our table specifically to have a view of the game. The manager or bartender or somebody at one point switched the channel to a game showing on the adjacent tv when his buddies sat down to wait for their take-​out order. This irked my husband because now two tvs were showing the same game with no Cowboys anywhere in our view. He approached the employee and wad told «be nice. You’re purpose here is to be nice» Now, I get the island laid-​back mentality, but, seriously? This place is a joke. My food was ok, my husband thought his burger wad awful. We will not be back on our next visit to visit beautiful Kauai!

Great sports bar! Amazing PuPu’s with unbeatable prices… Perfect for that big game or just loosing yourself in moment

The high rating is for the happy hour which lasts 3−6pm. We came just in time and when our trip could use a couple beers. We each ordered two fish tacos ($ 3 a piece) which were good although with a little too much sauce. They were good and actually had a fair amount of fish in them! The $ 2 chips and salsa I do not recommend. $ 3 coronas are a must. We were a bit disappointed that they were out of wings but it’s understandable since they were 25cents. We also got the tuna pupu– great stuff! For ten bucks we felt like we got our fill of fish.
Our server was super sweet and I’m sad I don’t know her name to give her a shout out.
This location overlooks the beach so get a seat on the outside.

We stopped here before our flight home. It was close to the airport. It was night time so we couldn’t see the view of the ocean that they seem to have. It’s not on the ocean but across the street from it.
I ordered the Ahi tuna avocado appetizer. It was very good. My husband had their ribs. He said they were okay but he’s had better.
This place is more of a dive bar so don’t expect a fancy restaurant. Prices were
good, waitress was super nice and friendly. It was a nice send off before going home.

Definitely a local hot spot since they have $ 0.25 wings for hh. We unfortunately did not partake but I’m sure this will be a go to the next time we’re in town. Great location, right by the Kalapaki beach. Also, order the brownie sundae at your own risk. S*** was massive and humungous. All of the burgers come on this breading which is fantastic, nothing like main land burgers which is a plus if you’re not in the mood for the same old same old.

I like coming here to eat. Their salads are huge, food is always fresh when we’ve eaten here, great place to watch games, open lanai sitting, view of Kalapaki.
Their happy hour is reasonable, and have a good variety of drinks to chose from. There are tv’s all over, inside and outside to watch whatever is on. I
Their spinach onion dip is so good, one of my favorite places to get it on the island.

Kalapaki’s features excellent hot wings at $.25 a wing and good happy hour beer specials. Often, there is live cover band music. An open-​aired, island bar.

–Our waitress hardly paid attention to us. Then she told the table next to us that there was a shift change & she didn’t know that their table was her’s.
–we got there shortly before happy hour. Ordered our food & drinks & waitress said she would put everything in at the beginning of happy hour. She did, but we got our food 30 mins later.
–we got steak nachos & chicken lettuce wraps. Nachos were half burned & over cooked. They also had refried beans & pizza sauce under all the chips. The steak was maybe 6 pieces that were all over done. The chicken for the lettuce wraps was ok. The lettuce was soggy & not crisp at all.
–the beer in the taps was warm. The beer I got was warm halfway thru drinking it, couldn’t finish it.
–THEN! My hubby ordered poke, it’s a normal staple in Hawaii. However this poke was bad. It came out gray, normally its bright red.
Overall I wouldn’t recommend it.

Got poke and brie. Buddy got food-​poisoning.
Hostess was on phone forever and took a while to seat us. Whatever. Not a warm greeting, either. Also had a bit of attitude and just gave me a weird judgey look instead of a «thanks, come again».
Waited forever for the server to come around. This place was probably understaffed. Server was friendly. Friendlier than the hostess, for sure.
There was water or some kind of liquid on 2 of the 4 seats at our table.
The drinks we got were good. I got a mojito (really sweet) and buddy got a mixed beer thing (less sweet). Happy hour prices looked good, so *might* come back to get hammered early in the night.
bottom line: don’t eat here, but do drink here. in fact, get so drunk you don’t notice the crappy attitude of some of the employees here.

Disgusting. We read the reviews and should have known better… but the idea of spending almost $ 200 every night for dinner was just not that appealing. They boast the best HH on the island, so we figured we would try it out. EVERY complaint that everyone else had we experienced.
Gross tables, hair in the food!!!, slow service, spring break feel, drunk idiots, etc.
We did grab a couple of pints, had the avocado poke (with a hair… NASTY!), fish tacos (decent) and a few other items…
Disappointing! But… we should have known better after reading reviews from our trusted Unilocalers!

Not worth it. Too expensive tourist trap, especially for those coming off the cruise ships.
Ordered lava flow cocktail $ 8. Very little, if any, liquor.
Was seated at a dirty table and had to ask for it to be cleaned.
Very slow for waitresse to return our credit card after paying.
Music was good at night.

Stopped in for lunch this place was more than a little packed we enjoyed a few drinks at the bar we had about a 15 minute wait for a table. Looked like mostly tourist with a few locals mixed in. Our group ordered a few different things I got the wings the were nice size and crispy I thought they were very good. Some ordered burgers and others fish no one had any complaints.
The place had a good vibe and the servers were on top of things I thought the prices were fair for what it was. The drinks were tropical and refreshing we never had to wait for anything. It’s location is close to shopping so of course everyone was up for that you can’t come here without taking home a few treasures to throw in the drawer at home overall it was a pleasant experience.

Our family was staying at the Kauai Marriott Resort, so we walked over a few times to Rice Street where the small center called Harbor Mall was located. There were a few options of restaurants to choose from, and we elected to dine here since it seemed to be the busiest restaurant out of the entire center. There seemed to be a mixture of both locals and tourists dining here, so we took that as a good sign.
The restaurant was pretty busy when we checked in and we were seated immediately to the left of their check-​in area. It looked like we may have taken the last seat in the house that night. It didn’t bother us too much as we were tired from a long day of sight seeing and were hungry, not wanting to take the car out of valet again for another drive in search of dinner.
At first our waitress quickly tended to our needs getting our drink and food orders, but after our drinks arrived, everything slowed down. As we waited for our meals we had long finished our alcoholic drinks and no one seemed to notice. New customers arrived and were waiting for someone to acknowledge them as well. Some even left out of frustration. All of the workers seemed to be gathered at this one table inside and taking their breaks. We watched as the gals would sit and chat, grab a quick bite or two, and with mouths full of food come out and check the new arriving customers in then go back inside to eat more. There was loud thumping music playing the entire time and the entire indoor area seemed to be cleared out. I’m not sure if they have dancing in the late evenings or not, but the level of the music was a little too loud for my liking.
Finally when all of our food arrived we were able to order our refills of our drinks. All of the food we had ordered from the soy bean appetizers to the coconut shrimp, fish and chips and pulled pork sandwich to finally the warm brownie with vanilla ice cream were pretty good, but the slow service and unprofessionalism brings my rating down a star. Maybe we would have been treated different if we were actual «locals» to the island, I’m not sure.

Our first meal in Kauai was at Kalapacki Joes… and thats only because its one of the very few places, besides McDonalds and Burger King, open past 900pm on a Sunday, or any day for that matter.
$ 10.99 for the two fish taco plate… this left me missing Rubio’s back in SoCal (That’s not a good thing, I don’t really like Rubio’s, except on $ 1.50 Fish Taco Tuesdays.) The fish was decent, but the meat itself wasn’t quite ¾’s of the lenght of the tortilla. No rice or beans included, just some scrappy chips. The wife’s $ 13.99 Ahi Tuna Salad was pretty good, but still subpar.
If you’re listening to the radio in Kauai, about every 5^th or 6^th radio commericial is about Kalapacki Joes. I wish Joe would cut back spending on radio advertisements and invest more in his food.
I know its Hawaii… things are pricier and quality is lower, but still, I choose not to write this review until my trip was over and I had other places to compare it against. At least the staff was friendly, and sounds like they got a great Happy Hour from 300−600(according the radio ad).