The Social Honolulu Eatery & Bar

Quite possibly the worst eatery/​bar I’ve been to.
Some friends and I decided to try out The Social Honolulu tonight and from the get go, it was just an «off» experience.
I wasn’t a huge fan when it was Dash… but at least Dash made sense. The ambience of this place was all wrong. The lighting was neither dim nor bright… it was literally the perfect shade of headache. The wall décor was strangely placed. There was some city scape next to some wooden flooring on the wall. But what really threw it off was our server. Friendly… but very inattentive. Not to mention, she shorted one of my friends 10 bucks on her change. The wait times were long. Just to get some water we ordered, it was about 15 minutes.
The food… nope. After seeing all the photos of their food, the whole reason we decided on this place, I thought for sure that the food would save the day. I was wrong. The fried rice was disgusting. Oily, flavored like it had been reheated on a dirty stove top, and OVER saturated in soy sauce. I mean, seriously, you couldn’t taste anything in the rice but the overbearing sauce.
At least the edamame was still warm when it came out.
We called it an early night. Between the long wait times, the slow service, the horrible food, and the issue with the change… we will more than likely not be returning to The Social Honolulu.

I’ll start off my review by saying that recently I was in dire need of a meat slicer… I went to them for help. They tried. 4 stars for that automatic.
The place is nice and spacious, clean, and air conditioned.
Decent selection of libations.
Food has been satisfying.
Staff always friendly and helpful.

My friends and I came here for a pau hana Friday dinner, and we liked it so much that we’re thinking about making it a regular event.
Didn’t need to worry about parking because we walked from my friend’s house, down the street. I hear parking is not the best situation, but to be honest, in town, most places don’t have the best parking period.
We got there and it was surprisingly empty. We apparently got there at the top of dinner hour, as it quickly became crowded as we progressed through our meal.
We sat down in a spacious booth as we perused the menu, looking for some good family-​style bar food to enjoy with our drinks. If you’re not feeling like drinking anything too alcoholic, I recommend the root beer beer. Yes, root beer flavored beer, with alcohol content. After an… «interesting» New Year’s Eve, I wasn’t feeling like drinking anything at all, but this was quite good.
We ordered five dishes, all of which were great. We particularly enjoyed the edamame and the zucchini fries with the zesty spicy sauce that it came with.
Our server, Carly, was very sweet and attentive, but not overly attentive. Overall, customer service was an A+.
We had a fantastic time at The Social. If you haven’t gone yet, grab a bunch of friends and go enjoy some delicious eats!

Awesome venue! Great service, delicious food, chill vibe, and upbeat music. Perfect place to start off your weekend!
Food:
Dynamite Chicken $ 9
–tangy & sweet chili sauce gave their yummy fried chicken the perfect flavor. You cannot go wrong with this. So good!
Truffle Parm Fries:
–Simple and enjoyable dish. Add some truffle oil & Parmesan, and it’s a party. My only criticism is the Parmesan pieces were mostly on the bottom of the tray and perhaps needed to be better melted onto the fries.
Overall, I loved my experience and will be back soon. Maybe tomorrow?!

After getting rejected from Izakaya Torae Torae we walked to Social as it is across the street. Contrary to other Unilocal reviews, the staff is attentive and very nice. We ordered garlic fries rice, hamachi jalapeño sashimi, salmon crudo, fries and beef tataki. For being a sports bar, the food is really good. I will definitely return.

So I’m gonna let you guys in on a big secret! The Social (aka the old Dash) has the best happy hour on the island! They have a ton of dishes for only $ 5! They also have a special where you can choose a happy hour dish, get a pint of Coors or Miller & their shot of the day for just $ 10! Pitchers of Coors or Miller are $ 6!
Happy hour runs from 4 – 6 Monday — Friday! I went with a few classmates after a meeting for school & there were only a few filled tables. It was different to see, since I usually only come on Friday or Saturday nights when they’re packed.
We ordered the calamari, dynamite chicken, Korean chicken & the kim chee fried rice. Everything was super delicious & I definitely recommend the calamari! They are little takos skewered on sticks. The kim chee was spicy but I seriously couldn’t stop eating it!

Heard the social has some great food so we came here during Christmas Eve with couple of friends to check the place out. Come to find out that their fryer was broken so we weren’t able to order any fries and or their braised kalbijim
There was one server the entire night (despite it being Christmas Eve) was very nice and checked up on us frequently to see if we needed anything else. Since the fryer was broken, we went with their kimchee fried rice. The portion was huge! Def got my money’s worth.
Although we were pretty bummed out, I’ll definitely have to visit again to try out their food!

I’m sad to say that the menu at The Social has changed, and when I brought my sister in this past Saturday to try a couple items (waffle fries nachos and escargot) they were nowhere to be found on the new menu. We settled on ordering the kalbi poutine and the dynamite chicken. Both these items were good… the kalbi poutine was very cheesy but didn’t have that much kalbi, and the dynamite chicken was nice and crunchy. But they weren’t good enough to shake off my disappointment at the loss of their old menu items. Additionally, we waited for at least 30 minutes hoping that a free dart board would make our evening better. But the dart boards were packed and it didn’t seem like there would be a free one for at least an hour or two. We ended up trying to settle our bill (but this took an additional 10 minutes because the servers were MIA) and after finally paying and getting our card back we made a fast beeline towards the door to find somewhere with an open dartboard and faster service.
If I come back, it would only be if they revived their old menu, improved their service, or I were feeling adventurous to give them another shot. Sadly, I’ll have to look for other places to satisfy my escargot cravings and my desire to play darts.
TL;DR — slow service, new menu, and no open dart boards!

I visited this place several months ago with a group of friends. We all ordered a bunch of dishes and shared among all of us. The food here was actually good but the portions were super small especially for the price you pay.
The service here was definitely lacking. The servers were sooo unbelievably slow, and the place was basically empty, except for our table and another table. I was actually getting really irritated b/​c we had to ask our server and another worker several times for various things, including orders for drinks/​food and also our bill. They were not even apologetic or even aware that we were becoming impatient and had to repeatedly ask for things.
Not impressed with this place at all and sadly I have no desire to return here.

The Social is a great place to be «social“ize around good food and drinks.
Tried the place for the first time on a Monday night. It was a little empty, but hey, a ton of places to sit! It’s spacious and there’s dart boards too. I couldn’t help but think how it’d be a great place to bring a bunch of people for pau hana.
In terms of parking, there’s a few stalls out in front… if there’s none there… then you’ll probably have to park in the street.
I had the kalbi poutine, garlic and bacon fried rice and the miso ribeye. Oh my goodness, so much food for just two people. Everything tastes great but was a tiny bit salty… and I’m someone who usually likes salty food too. I don’t think people have realized how good the food is here. I can’t wait to try their other menu items.

I am very neutral about The Social. I don’t love it, but I don’t dislike it either.
From my experience, it’s honestly a hit or miss on the food. My friends and I really didn’t like the Braised Kalbijjim Poutine. It just seemed like a weird combination. Also, the Mentaiko Spaghetti wasn’t terrible but it was veryyy rich. A little too rich.
A few items that my friends and I really liked were the Honey Walnut Shrimp, Garlic Bacon Fried Rice, Kimchee Fried Rice, the Dynamite Chicken, and the Truffle Bacon Asparagus Penne (my fave) .
Parking sucks because their lot is so small. It’s $ 5 for validation (which fills up really fast) or park across the street by the bank for $ 3.
Lastly, I feel like the décor could use some work. I thought the place looked ok when the spot used to be Dash but not it looks very run down. It needs a paint job for sure.

I really wanted to like this place, but sadly, I was disappointed. Perhaps I came here with some preconceived notions from the previous establishment that occupied this space or I just wasn’t feeling the right vibe when I visited this place. Whatever the reason may be, I wasn’t totally sold on The Social as a hangout for pau hana.
The drink menu was pretty impressive with a nice assortment of domestic and imported beers. The menu was also impressive with items, such as escargot and oyster shooters available. So, why would I be disappointed? Despite the extensive array of food and drink, the taste of the food and service was kind of below par.
We had a fairly large table that ordered a good array of food, including Kim Chee Fried Rice, Waffle Fries, Fried Pork Chops, and Miso Yaki Steak. The pork chops were dry and the kim chee fried rice had a bunch of mushy lumps in it. I didn’t like the steak, but other people enjoyed it. I prefer my steak to be cooked a little more thoroughly, but the steak was raw and cold in the middle. I swear it was the same steak that I had when this place was DASH and I didn’t like that steak either.
The service needs some improvements. I thought the servers were kind of inattentive. We were a large group and the rest of the place wasn’t that crowded, but we constantly had to hunt a server down for more drinks, or ask for a menu to order more food. We had to ask more than once for our drink orders and no one asked us if we needed any refills. I kind of felt like we were invisible despite the fact that we were the biggest group there at the time.
I hope that the night we visited this place was just an off night because I would love to see this place flourish. It’s conveniently located with parking in the front or across the street at the bank. However, a key to success is the flavor of the food and an attentive staff to serve tasty food. Hopefully improvements will happen.

I recently bought an ID card offline and found out that they offer a discounts to certain restaurants and lots of other fun spots. My boyfriend and I were looking for somewhere to eat and I decided to try this place and get my discount with my new card :) This place is great! I loved the food, service, and ambiance. Everyone should check this place out.
We got to restaurant as soon as it opened. We found a parking spot immediately. I did read in other reviews that parking can be tough so I felt lucky. I was a little worried cause we were the only two people there. We decided to sit at the bar so the bartender didn’t have to come out to the table to wait on us. I didn’t see any other staff around the entire time we were there. I’m assuming that the restaurant picks up later. Either way we decided to stay.
We started off with a couple of cocktails from there drink menu and they did not disappoint. I had a strawberry cocktail which I highly recommend. It’s very refreshing and I preferred it over the passion fruit mule. We then ordered the salmon tartare, truffle hamachi, and the garlic bacon fried rice. All of these we’re amazing. The food here is great and I can’t wait to go back and try other items on there menu.

Food = delicious!
Service = meh. The servers that we had last night were nice but the food took REALLY long to come out. I mean they were busy last night so it probably wasn’t them. i will assume that the kitchen was backed up but at least stop by to apologize or something. That’s just my two cents. If a restaurant is taking long and the servers apologize and check up on us, I won’t get upset.
Back to the food though. Food was amazing! But I got really full by the time our main course came out. We were at the restaurant for almost 2 hours. We ordered 4 light appetizers and 2 beer and 2 entrees. We were FULL after because between each set of appetizers we waited like 20 – 30 minutes.
Food:
Hamachi jalapeño — 3 piece order. It was OK.
Truffle hamachi — 3 piece order. Very yummy!
Oyster shooters — it was good for the price. 6 for $ 12.
Salmon crudo on top of house salad — pretty delicious! Dressing and salmon were on point.
Social burger — my friend really liked it! It came with yummy seasoned fries.
Uni mentaiko pasta — SO good! I only was able to take 3 bites though. I was stuffed.
Beer:
Blue moon white IPA on draft — citrus after taste kills bitterness of IPA
Kona Big Wave on draft — one of my faves
(The servers were pretty quick with the beers, this is why I blame the kitchen and not so much the servers)
But overall, I would comeback but NOT when it’s busy. :)

Mixed feelings on here. I want local businesses to succeed and flourish, but often, it isn’t in the cards…
Good food… but not cheap. In fact, inflated pricing. $ 7 for 3 pieces of seared ahi. By comparison, Home Bar charges $ 18 for 15 pieces of seared ahi. At that rate, The Social would charge $ 35 for the same dish! Food is good but not that good! Needless to say, I won’t be having seared ahi here again!
Service reeks here. We had a server – horrendous! Guess it was that time of the month for her! As an example, a buddy recently started dating a girl so he was in a jolly mood. He exclaimed how he loved it here, and the server just brushed her off with her hand and faced the other way. Snobby b*tch! Management knows this a problem and hopefully they correct it because customer service here is a huge detraction.
Inflated prices, customer disservice. What do they have going in their favor?

Based on what I’ve seen so far, I think this place is trying to be a hybrid of bar&grill/restaurant. I actually think it’s a pretty cool concept. It also fits the name perfectly. «The Social» aka bar «Eatery» aka restaurant.
The FOOD on both times here has been pretty good. We ordered the:
Garlic Bacon Fried Rice: This dish was good when it was dash and it’s still good. Not too salty, not too sweet but just right. The egg on top was a perfect sunny side up egg too.
Hamburger Steak Wellington: Very good. The hamburger wasn’t over cooked and the pastry crust was nice and flaky.
Salmon Tartare: Great. The salmon was fresh.amen.
Braised Kalbijjim Poutine: This dish was really good but a little too rich for me.
Black Truffle Hamachi Crudo: Great. hamachi was fresh.amen.
The PRICE is RESONABLE. The bar food on average is about 8 – 10 dollars a dish which is the going rate for bar grill places. The higher end food (non typical bar food) averages about 15 dollars which in my opinion is very good for the quality that they put out. So if you don’t want a huge bill then just stick to the bar food.
I can’t really comment on the SERVICE much because on both occasions we were the only customers in there at the time. But I can say that they were friendly and timely with our food and drinks.
The ENVIRONMENT is pretty much the same when it was DASH. Standard bar with bench booths, bar stool tables and dart boards.
Overall, I am a fan. Good food and drinks at a good price for the quality.

What happened? Seriously.
I loved Dash and when I heard it was still going to be the same chef and the fact that they changed the name with «eatery» in it. I got excited!
My heart is literally broken.
But, let’s start with, The Good:
* the fish burger was actually very delicious, i wasn’t expecting that
* i had the wellington hamburger steak, i was good too
The Bad:
* we ordered the ahi tataki thinking it would at least be a good appetizer for four girls… yeahhhh only three pieces came out. and it was NOT that good. the ahi tasted funny
* the bill was huge for… not a great bunch of food
* the menu had no categories and was disorganized, could use more white space and a more easy readable font (oh the picky designer in me… it gets annoying even to myself)
* the walls… the paintings… was just so off. that brown color?! and then the painting of the city scape… nothing matched and it was off putting. i just didn’t really want to look around.
The Weird:
* i skimmed my waiter’s name tag really fast and though his name tag said «STFU» but really it was «STU» — haha! man.
Probably won’t be coming back here, although I do have faith they can come back and be the «happenin» place again.

Despite the negative reviews on Unilocal I wanted to give this place a try and bring them some business. We came in with a party of a little over 20. We called ahead of time so they were prepared for us. The place has booth seats with dart boards and TV’s around the dark colored walls.
Our server Ryan was very professional and informative with the menu. The girls that came around to check on us were quick, friendly and kept my water filled. That’s awesome in a bar. The $ 14 mentaiko pasta is creamy with just the right combination of fish eggs and uni. The sashimi is served artistically and you get 3 – 4 pieces for $ 6-​$ 7. The social ribeye served with sautéed mushrooms and onions is large enough to share for $ 23. I’m not a Fried potato fan but my friends all seemed to like the poutine fries served with braised beef. They have a good variety of beers and all the usual alcohol available.
The bathrooms are clean and I think you can pick the music.

First off, parking kind of sucks. You can valet your car for $ 5, which takes all of 30 seconds for the attendant to park for you, or you can find street parking. There is also parking across the street in the CPB parking lot. Not free. Last time I had checked it was $ 3 to park there. Come early and street parking shouldn’t be too difficult to find.
The Social has taken over what used to be Dash. On the corner of McCully and Young Street, it isn’t that difficult to find. There has been changes in the décor: it seems brighter and more simple than its predecessor. The ambience is lacking a bit. There are tables set up, as well as booths. The new owners probably could have spent a little more time revamping the place.
My waitress was alright. She wasn’t outstanding. But she wasn’t terrible. She got me what I needed, when I needed it. When business started to pick up as the night went on, other members of the staff came out to help. How nice of them.
Now the important stuff: the food. I have to say, the food was much better than I thought it would be. I didn’t know what to expect, but I definitely didn’t come in with high expectations. I was pleasantly surprised.
The oyster shooters are a must. I also tried the Hamachi Jalapeño. That wasn’t bad. The dynamite chicken was tasty. Uni pasta wasn’t too impressive. I’ve had better. Beef tataki was yum.
Their menu is so extensive, I’d have to come back to try other things. Swing by if you’re in the area and see for yourself!
Enjoy.

The Social is located on the corner of Young and McCully. They have parking available in the front and I believe on weekends its Valet only. There is also street parking available on Young St.
I been here twice and I really like it. Honestly it hasn’t caught on yet, so the two times I came here it was pretty empty. But that’s what I liked about it. It was like having the bar to myself ;)
The Grub.
[[ Escargot $ 12 ]]
This dish is made with Garlic, onion, parsley butter, Parmesan, and sliced bread. I thought this dish was delish~!
[[ Lup Chong Mon Chong $ 14 ]]
They steamed the lop chong, and cooked it with brussel sprouts, ginger, and wasabi aioli. This dish was a lot bigger than I thought it was. Definitely a great meal.
[[ Black Truffle Hamachi Crudo $ 7 ]]
Yummy hamachi sashimi, thin onions, black truffle, tobiko, roasted jalapeño and soy vinaigrette. You can never go wrong with this dish.
Overall the food was delish and the service was good. I’m a fan of The Socail.