Waioli Lounge

Just arriving at the hotel after a morning road trip from Kona, we settle for late lunch there. We all had a salad (NYE resolutions, right?) and water.
Verdict: A nice view on the sea and some Palm trees. The salads were average and expensive. To be fair, the other plates looked nice but we didn’t feel like burgers and fries.

Cocktails are pretty colorful tropical drinks. As a tourist that was what i was hoping for!
Service was friendly although they were busy and sometimes did not come back to our table when we wanted something
When they are serving dinner at the buffet side, this side’s dinner orders get backed up too and took ½ hr to get our club sandwich and mac salad.
The shrimp scallop appetizer is wonderful and tasty! Buttery goodness
Pricey, as this is a hotel

Nice views of the bay and coconut island. Menu is limited and a little pricey but it was worth it for a quick lunch and ambiance

Pros — nice atmosphere, good local music by Lito once a week, drink specials are awesome.
Cons — very limited menu and very expensive — touristy prices. Not a place for kama’aina to go and enjoy unless you have money to blow. On the night we went there was only one waitress working. Poor girl. She was running around trying to take orders and buss all the tables herself. Our wait was long for ordering, water refill, and getting the bill. Our waitress was sincerely apologetic and we tipped her well anyway. The food was decent. Nothing special. We are skipping Wai’oli lounge next time we have a date night. Will leave it for the tourists.

pretty good food at a mediocre hotel.

Lito Arkangel is an amazing local artist who plays here on Thursday nights. We primarily came to this venue to listen to him perform and to mingle with some very close friends.
The lounge is fairly small but a pleasant area with two and four seater tables. The waitress was kind enough to push two tables together for our party of six, a quick last minute fix since we didn’t make any reservations. Our waitress was very pleasant.
Unfortunately it was a very busy night and they seemed to be understaffed. Service was a little slow but she really did her best and remained pleasant the entire time.
Our men were hungry so we had several orders of sashimi, oyster rockefeller (3 per order), fries, onion rings, shrimp scampi & crab cakes. I wasn’t impressed with the food at all. The oysters were just ok. The scampi was poorly seasoned. The fries were also under seasoned. The sashimi, crab cakes and onion rings are the best selections on the menu at this time. This would be a wonderful spot if management works on the quality of the food & offers a few more items at a lower cost.
We definitely plan to come back here but next time we plan to do the buffet dinner at the Queens Court before we head to the lounge to watch Lito play.

This was our second time here. Went for lunch both times and found the service very satisfactory. I ordered a chai tea latte which came out very nice sprinkled with cinnamon and lots of froth. The chicken Caesar salad was quite good. It was a very large portion and seasoned well. We also ordered the fries, can’t remember the name but they were tipped with cheese, real bacon, sour cream and green onions, very yummy! My only recommendation would be in delivering the orders. I felt bad for our server who had to go all the way back to the kitchen for everyone’s food. This did slow up the service time.

Very good service and great mai tais! The live music was interesting, but really loud. The bar tender was excellent. We tried the pot stickers and they were really good but the sauce is very salty. The onion rings were awesome. Thick cut onions with crunchy batter. Yum!

Husband and I stayed at Hilo Hawaiian Hotel in May 2013 and visited the bar a couple of times and had the opportunity to listen to live Hawaiian music. Talented musician with great staff and drinks. Had the fresh oysters and a couple of appetizers that were excellent. Will go back to this bar again when on the Island.

**REVIEW IS FOR THURSDAY NIGHT HAPPY HOUR WITH LITO ARKANGEL” GO! My friend and I were cruising down at Honolii beach park and saw a flyer for a happy hour featuring Lito Arkangel at the Waioli Lounge and iCafe at the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel. My friend reluctantly agreed to check it out. WOW! WE HAD A GOOD TIME!
First off, the café has the most amazing view of Coconut Island and Hilo Bay. That alone is worth going there for a drink. We were drinking $ 3 Coors Lights on ice which was the happy hour special. They have a list of specialty cocktails for $ 10… I tried one that sounded good but sadly it was way too sweet for me.
Service was great… we asked our waitress what an «icafe» is and she explained to us with a straight face that this is the café for people who use iPhones and Apple computers, and if we have an android phone we would have to leave and go to their droid café. This struck us as very funny at the time. You know, that’s what you want in a cocktail waitress, someone who is willing to crack a joke or two. We showed her our iPhones and she said we could stay.
The crowd was a funny mix of Japanese tourists quietly drinking wine and holding hands, hyperactive but friendly mainland newlyweds, and locals including one big table celebrating their friends’ 60^th wedding anniversary.
MOST IMPORTANT: LITO ARKANGEL… THIS GUY WAS AMAZING. I really couldn’t believe we were getting this amazing concert for free. It was just him singing with his ukulele but he made MUSIC! Really great voice. He must have noticed Auntie with the flower in her hair, because he just said «anyone who dances hula and would like to come up and dance is welcome any time» and BOING! Auntie did not have to be asked twice, she jumped up and went up front and danced a really beautiful graceful warm hula. He was like «wow, I must be psychic» and then he asked her later if she wanted to dance again and she told him what to play and she danced again, so beautifully. It was really perfect and unexpected Hilo Moment.
We did order food, the menu is basically sandwiches (about $ 10), fish and chips ($ 16), onion rings ($ 8)… we asked the waitress if she could substitute the onion rings on the fish and chips and she easily replied «sure why not» and we thought it was delicious. We split it. So yeah, just for food, I would have liked to see a few lower priced happy hour type bar food deals offered as well, but it was not too outrageous and was hot and fresh.

This was by far the worst light lunch experience I have ever had. I have lived in Hawaii for a few years so I’m accustomed to the Hawaiian pace of service (slow) but this service was non-​existent. I joined my friends, who had already ordered and received their drinks and I didn’t see the waitress until their orders arrived. Had the place been busy I would have understood but we were the only table in the lounge/​bar area. Once the waitress arrived I placed my order and asked for a water. Apparently, if you want a club sandwich a chef must be present so I had to get the wrap instead (not anything special). My water didn’t come until my food and that was even after my friend went to the bar to ask for it again. Once we ate it was another 20 minutes for the bill to arrive and we ended up having to get up and hunt down the waitress to get our cards run. This is by far the worst service experience I have had and I strongly discourage anyone from ever going here.

Please stay away from this lousy place. They make the worst fish and chips and the chicken fettuccini alfredo was disgusting with zero flavors.

Located inside the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel. Full bar. I had sashimi, pretty fresh.