The Shack Waikiki

Another popular Waikiki spot bites the dust.
It was a good run. Saturday night was their last night!
I went in around 11ish and it was packed. You could barely walk in or do anything. The music was jamming and everyone was having a good time.
One only begins to wonder who the next tenant will be because that spot is a prime location.
Until then… thanks Shack for the memories!

One of the servers here is a crazy magician! Really wowed us.
Other than that its just a typical bar/Friday’s-ish type of restaurant and can get pretty crazy Saturday nights. Theres plenty of room to move about, lots of seating, good music, and pretty good food!

This experience started off bad with our drinks. I ordered a Coke. What came out was a flat beverage the was closer to dish water than Coke. The person with me ordered an Arnold Palmer. I described it to the server since she did not know what one was. That did not appear to help. We are not sure, but what we believe he got was tea with sour mix.
We ordered the Deep Fried Mozza to start. We both ordered the Shack Montster Cheeseburger. The cheese sticks never came. Burgers eventually came, but they were both Swiss & Shroom Burgers. Our server and the manager appologized extensively and brought out the correct burgers shortly there after. The burgers were actually good. They are huge.
The bathrooms are inconvenient and disgusting. You have to take a few turns down a narrow dark hallway outside of the restuarant. The door has an electronic coded lock, normally a good sign. The bathroom its self had a horrible smell. Clearly the janitor does not have the door code.
The food we tried was good. The service was anything but. I may try it again.

Main reason I came here? JBoog! Luckily my trip to Hawaii coincided with JBoog’s tour, and I got to hear some awesome live music on my trip.
What about The Shack you say? It’s very chill. Tourist that I am came in heels, and my feet wee dying by the end of the night. Didn’t know dress code over here included flip flops, but I’ve learned my lesson. It is a pretty laid back atmosphere. There is a bar in the middle with a lot of drafts on tap. Thursday nights they have $ 2 drafts, so you know I needed to take advantage of that. I got the pear flavored beer. DELICIOUS! Didn’t even taste like beer. Come to think of it, it barely. Tasted of alcohol. Don’t get me wrong, I can enjoy a great beer. However, this hit the spot that night.
I don’t know how The Shack is other nights, but I’m glad I got to go when I did.

As much as I love the Shack’s buffalo wings, the rest of the menu is on the pricey side for me. To counter the extreme food prices, they do offer relatively good happy hour deals!
The kalbi poke was decent, lots of sprouts. The wings are my favorite (although the waitress didn’t remember to bring me both blu cheese and ranch). Otherwise the waitresses made sure our drinks kept coming.
Lots of tv for great sports watching. Lots of seating. Lots of potential, just didn’t particularly impress me on a Monday night.

I’m sorry, but this place has gone from okay to not so good.
I’ve only been here once when it was crowded and that was on a Thursday. Every other time that I have gone the place has been close to empty.
Our server the last time forgot to give us forks. We had to walk to the bar and ask because she was no where to be seen. She also gave my friends daughter old milk, we were wondering why the little girl made a face when she took her first sip, then she said ‘I want milk’. Surprised at her statement one of us tried it and yes, the milk was old. And we didn’t even get the milk for free!
It’s also rather expensive for the food. Decided to eat burger and it was kind of tasteless, and not worth the $ 7.75 that I paid for it. I also had to pay another $ 3.25 for fries. I have had their food before and I’m sad that they took my favorite meal on the menu off.
I doubt I will go here again, unless it’s a Thursday and they have cheep beer. I just have to make sure I eat first.

OMG! They got rid of the local plates I used to love!
My group used to come here all the time for Taco Wednesdays. (Yes it’s Wednesday, not Tuesday… I know… confusing…) That was a long time ago so we decided to stop in again. BIG disappointment!
First of all, their website still stated that they had their taco special, however, when we arrived, it was a completely different special. They used to have $ 2 fish tacos that were amazing. Now the special starts later (8 pm?) and it is a taco bar, not individual tacos! They REALLY need to update their website. Since I didn’t feel like having an entire taco bar, I started searching through the menu for my usual favorite their chicken katsu… but wait!!! OMG! Who took away my local specials menu!?! I searched through everybody’s menus as well! It was GONE!
I will probably never come to this shack again. When the waiters and waitresses throw away empty beer bottles, it was like they were throwing it into the trashcan trying to make the LOUDEST noise possible. It was so annoying! And the service… NOT good at all! We had to wait for our waitress to stop talking story and actually SERVE us multiple times. NOT happy. Will not return and will tell others to go to Hawaii Kai or Mililani Shack.

Sports bar with a cover band and small dance floor.
It’s a pretty divey, low key type of place to drink and dance a little. Booth seating around some walls, with tables here and there. If you have a huge group, chances are you won’t find a spot big enough. Its also more of a sports bar. I was paying more attention to the tv than the music or dance floor. Right next door is Zanzabar which is a proper club and looks better for dancing.
We were directed this way by bartenders at other bars we stopped at earlier in the night, but it didn’t do it for us for various reasons.
Bouncers can be shady. A friend left to go use the bathroom and wasn’t let back in because they deemed her ID fake and demanded a second form of ID. Seriously? If it was fake, she would never had made her flight. They would have let her go back in on the condition they hold onto her ID while she’s inside. Yeah, that didn’t fly. To the next, legit bar we go!
About $ 10 cover on a Thursday night

Great burgers & Happy Hour special.
Packed at night through the week. Great place to chill or watch the game!
Occasionally there is a $ 5 cover, which SUCKS because there isn’t always something going on there, yet they still charge to get in at night. No Door-​Charge during the daytime though… that’s a relief!