Kavikas Grill & Bar

Environment is good I was a bit skeptical about this place at first from reviews for lunch (happy hour) but service was okay not great but just okay
only ordered water and the Thai calamari I like the flavor but it was mushy like it was sitting in the kitchen for awhile
Probably due to the waitress drinking wine with others rather than tending to her customers…
Overall things could be better here

Facts:
* We made prior reservations (24 hour advanced reservations) for a booth on a big fight night.
* When we arrived and was seated, we asked the hostess to be moved to a different booth that was two booths away in order to have a better view of the big screen.
* The manager, Misko, rude and absolutely unaccommodating.
* The waitress, Debbie, rude and absolutely unaccommodating.
* An employee misplaced the restaurant’s validation stamp supposedly. Then it appeared about a few minutes later so that we can get our validation.
* Kavika’s is a mess.

The whole layout of this bar makes for a really awkward atmosphere. There is literally no room to dance unless you’re up close in the bar area or near someones table– it’s just weird. Pretty girls lots and lots but as far as the male options here– meh– I think they might all be over at Mai Tai? In fact… that is the only reason me and my girlfriends ended up here– Mai Tai was just way too packed. They acted like they were hooking us up getting us in here– I guess the drink voucher thing is pretty creative. There was a bartender who was quite a looker, and when I asked him to make me a drink, I think it was probably enough alcohol to give me a blackout– maybe that was on purpose? Thanks. Music is… ok.
Overall just awkward. I wouldn’t come back. Not here.

Allright. I came to catch UFC 148 (Chael vs. Silva) fight here. Obviously, to pay for the pay-​per-​view at home would be too expensive, so we made reservations and came out to Kavikas.
When we got there, there we were 4 servers walking aimlessly around the restaurant. When we were seated, we asked them to flip on the tv so we could watch the fight. Know what the waitress said?
«I’ll try to get someone to do it. If not, just keep asking.»
!?
Wow. I must have stumbled into the DMV somehow. After we were seated, I am not lying. No waitress was sent to us to get our drinks! After waiting 15 mins staring at the blank tv at our table, I walked up to a waitress and she took our order all sassy-​like. Our grouped just looked at each other like… «WTF!?» We felt we were pretty gracious about asking nicely for them to take our order. But the sass was just far-​out.
The rest of the night it was mix of seeing the waitresses running round all confused. Having one of the cooks come out to confirm our order. And them charging a gratuity fee for us. We were a freaking group of 4!!!
We left after the fight but decided to talk to manager there. Suit and tie guy. He listens to us, somehow he seems almost sympathetic for us, and says, «Hey, how about I give you guys a couple of beers? Would that make things cool?» We obliged and he handed us off to the bartender, «He’ll take care of you.» No. That Long Island was so light-​handed on the alcohol!
Overall, I’m not sure how else the experience could have been more worse. It was just bad in every way.

I’ve been here on a few occasions and it never disappoints. I think you’d pass it up because it’s on the second floor near the bridge/​Aquarium, when you have all these other selections in the Pike to choose from, so it took a random coupon to bring me here the first time. Now, I’m a repeat customer.
The food is always tasty. The bar (and sports room t.v.s) give a good atmosphere. The service is sometimes slow, but friendly. The prices are right.

YUCK!!!
–We were told this place would turn into a club at 10:30
–We sit and eat by 9:15. chicken wings. totally underwhelmed
–At 9:45 the music starts blaring so loud we literally are yelling our conversation. We asked the waitress to tell the DJ to turn it down at least a little bit.
–My friends tongue is poked by a piece of steel wool in her second bite of food. Waitress didn’t apologize but took it off the bill (as she should). My ahi had the same Korean-​like gochujang sauce that was on the wings. yes, just put it on half the items on the menu please. Once again. underwhelming
–Service got really slow and the fucking DJ turned the music down for one song and then up even louder
–We saw a 2″ FAT COCKROACH scurry from inside straight towards my seat outside. It was so fat that it tried to climb up a wall and failed
It’s like they’re trying TOO hard to be a wannabe club. with the way the place is set up, it’d be more successful if they 1. stopped trying to be a club. the place isn’t built for club quality acoustics 2. improved their service 3. changed/​improved their menu 4. ran a tighter ship including cleanliness
I will never come back. The volume of music is loud enough for the deaf to hear across town. And you know about roaches… you see one, there are thousands more you can’t see

I love coming here. I’m a regular even though Unilocal doesn’t recognize my «duke ship» but I’m not going to always remember to check into everywhere I go.
Kavikas is like my 3^rd family, work is 2^nd. And I find this place ever changing, in music and people. Very diverse. Sure this place have the new hip and epic tracks on the turn table but every now and then there would be a little old school which some could appreciate. Not everyone enjoys House music and vise versa. But I do! Drinks are always made with «LOVE»… And I’ll be on the floor by the end of the night.
I haven’t been here for lunch in awhile but I could still tell you all this:
NORTH SHORE NACHOS are delicious. Fresh, crispy… It’s something different.
Respect the bar and the bar will respect.
My FYI list to you:
–North shore nachos are a must try.
–come before 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays and your admission is free. But if you find yourself after 11 don’t sweat, 10 Dollars at the door.
BUT, your 10 denaro gets you 1 drink OR 2 beers at the bar. SO BASICALLY YOU’RE PAYING FOR YOUR DRINKS AT THE DOOR SO DO NOT GET ALL BITCHY WITH THE PEOPLE IN FRONT!
If you do sweat it, go next door I’m sure there are plenty of open spaces for you to breath. LOL! ;) and it’s probably 20 bucks to get in.
— just remember, this is not like a Hollywood night club thing where everyone is on something. No! This is loungey– chill place with crazy people (i.e. yours truly) shaking it up on my own dances floor.
— have fun and stop being a little Bitch! ;)

I went here for an event, so my perception may be a bit skewed.
I felt the bar staff was actually pretty good. They were fun and they even gave my friend a free shot to see if she would down the drink the «right» way. The food was not bad. Tasty, but not something to go nuts over at all. Seems like a nice place to grab a quick drink. I don’t know about actually dining here though.

*Owner & manager are elitist In my opinion.
*Did not honor a non-​expired
certificate. Asked before ordering if certificate will be honored including «kids eat for free day»…waitress said yes.
*Kavekas gave aquarium tickets instead but these tickets are not accepted at the aquarium! The Aquarium have asked kavekas to stop printing and giving them out.

Worst customer service. Mainly attributed to a very inept hostess but food too. We were there on the 4^th of July to try something different and see the fireworks in LB. I am pretty understanding at customer service situations since I’ve worked in fields that require dealing with the public, including during major holidays, but there was no excuse for the way things went on our visit. We went to the hostess station to get our name in and no hostess for several minutes. Mmmkay. She finally appears, takes our name and during the course of our wait, would ask about four times if we wanted inside or outside. «Inside is fine, thank you» — and then she would grab two menus and dart in the dining room without saying anything. Umm, would you like us to follow you? We just stayed put and laughed because she obviously didn’t have any follow through skills.
Finally we are seated near the kitchen and the hostess proceeds to tell us, «Um, I just want to let you know that your food may take a reallly long time to come out. (Her eyes darting in the kitchen) There are a lot of tickets in the kitchen»…WTF? This kind of information would have been useful BEFORE we sat down. And how the hell do you drop a bomb like that without following through and letting us know HOW long you think it will take? Its after 8 pm on the 4^th of July and I’d like to see the fireworks too. I told the bra-​less hostess, whose jugs would swing wildly as she walked (gross), to find us a server who could give us accurate information because I knew she wasn’t capable of being useful. A waitress found us and promised food would be out quickly because the owner was in the back helping get food out. OK, we’ll see.
I initially get served a cup of the saltiest and surprisingly spicy clam chowder ever. Euw. Easy of the salt, there! And after waiting 35+ minutes, our burgers and fries came out. The burgers tasted rushed and over seasoned. How do you eff up burgers? Well, this place did and its a prominent item on their menu. I can only imagine what other food tastes like… After pre-​paying for our meal before our burgers were served, we left just in time to see the fireworks, but the ghost of this awful meal made watching it hard because we had such a bad meal, our stomachs hurting from the burger and salt plus the headache of the awful, awful service. Thanks for ruining our evening!

This place was awesome! I really enjoyed eating here and the service was great! Don’t know why there are so many bad reviews on here, our experience was fantastic and we will definitely be back next time we go up to Long Beach.
Were up for the day at the Scuba Show and wanted something good to top the day off… I wanted something new, we usually always go to our old favorite CPK… so we decided to come here. Glad we did!
Our waitress was great and let us know we had like 5 mins to order something from Happy Hour menu (appetizers $ 1 off), so hubbs got the Thai Calamari and I got the Chicken Spring Rolls and we shared the North Shore Nachos… everything was really good, but the Nachos were AMAZING… I think next time we will just get two orders of the Nachos they were that good… best Nachos I have ever had, and made with wonton instead of corn chips… so tasty!!! We also got the Lava Cake for dessert, and it was good, not the best I have had but definitely good.
The wait staff was attentive, but not annoying, and refilled our drinks promptly.
Oh yah and from the looks of the place you would expect the prices to be a lot higher, the prices are super affordable! What a great menu and great prices too.
And when we walked in they had chick boxing on the big screens… how could we pass this place up? So we were sold, and will be back when we are in the area again!

I like supporting new businesses but if their food isn’t that great I’ll let you know. Their pizza was a bit too salty but its prosciutto which is generally salty. Their Asian stir fry beef did not taste Asian at all. It wasn’t bad tasting, but not what you expect — I guess you should expect that at a place like this.
I had some kinda of groupon, living social, something deal and so we used it here. Maybe next time I’ll try american dishes instead of asian fusion dishes and i’ll stay away from the prosciutto pizza.
Service was kinda slow but it was also an off time around 1100am on a saturday — we were planning to go to the aquarium with the deal they had but bc we were using a «coupon» we couldn’t combine it with the aquarium deal they had… boo! If they wanted to be nice they could of just offered it to us =) jk.

Happy Hour at Kavikas Grill and Bar at the Pike was a convenient discovery after an afternoon at the Aquarium of the Pacific. Advertised prices between 3 – 7 p.m. included Draft Beers for $ 3 (Premium $ 4), Well Drinks @ $ 3, and House Cocktails & Martinis for $ 7. We opted for a Newcastle and a Bud Light.
The bartender recommended Kavikas signature Northshore Nachos and I have to agree that these are not your everyday nachos. The difference is the base of Won Ton Crisps instead of corn chips and a Tropical Salsa rather than a spicy one. It comes topped with Grilled Chicken, 3 Cheeses (Pepper Jack, Mozzarella, & Cheddar), and streams of Sour Cream. It’s a nice change of pace when wanting something different.
The Angus Pike Bomber appetizer is a pair of small slider-​esque mini-​burgers and comes with Kavikas Seasoned House Fries. The bombers are ok. However, the fries are addictively good cause their Beer-​Battered Shoestring Potatoes, tossed in Parmesan, Roasted Garlic, and Shallots.
To round out the seating, we chose Chicken Lollipops. Their similar to buffalo wings, but instead of being coated in Buffalo Sauce, the chicken is lightly fried and tossed in the spicy sauce. We eat wings a lot and these stood out as being different. Their served with Carrots, Celery and Ranch Dressing.
It took a while to get service even though we were sitting at the bar. Once we did get helped, the rest of our hour at Kavikas was indeed happy.

We went here because of a Groupon we received and are always looking for new restaurants to try in the area. It was a bad sign when we arrived on a Friday evening and the place was dead. There was a knitting convention in town that weekend and there were two other groups there from this convention.
The menu was very limited. Our server lacked any knowledge of what was on the menu and could not answer some of our basic questions but would only give half answers with a giggle. I ordered a Grey Goose martini which contained a flavor of the last fruity berrytini that was made. This is a pet peeve of mine as an ex bartender. Please wash the mixer cup before making a martini!
The food was OK, but from what I later learned, this place is more of a «club» rather than a restaurant. We won’t be coming back.

This is definitely a skid-​mark of an establishment in the downtown area. The service is absolutely atrocious, their food is bland, subpar, and excessively overpriced, and it turns into a crappy club after 10 PM.
At minimum, they have a couple decent appetizers and a big TV to watch a sporting event, which would have promoted them to a still dismal two star rating if everything else wasn’t so bad. And I’ve been here a few times for various events with plenty of friends who agree with my assessment, so this isn’t just an isolated case.
Do yourself a favor and steer clear of this place; if you’re already in downtown, check out any of their other eating establishments or enjoy your night at Mai Tai Bar.

**Bar Review**
When Mai Tai’s is getting too crowded, Kavikas is the place to go. its only next door.
No Cover Charge
Music is loud and for the most part up to date with the latest tunes
TVs are on to show highlights of games
Atmosphere is dim, with a fireplace, and glass walls to see the action going on outside.
Bathrooms are fairly clean.
A lot of space to sit and chat and mingle with other locals.
Drinks are very affordable!
I was sad at first because I went all the way to Long Beach to find out that Mai Tai’s was way too crowded for my taste. Then my group of friends and I go next door and of course made the night fun!

2 weeks consecutive sessions, and 2 weeks of awesome :)
DJ Goose runs the show on Thursdays and the place has no cover. 80’s and 90’s jams with some of the new, but music appeals to the crowd, which is probably more of the working crowd comin out for a somewhat relaxing yet eventful night. If you want to go where you can’t really hear your friends talkin to you and just drink your a$$, go to Mai Tai next door. But Kavika’s is the place for me :) Drinks are typically priced for a bar… but a bottle of Jack is about $ 125 I think, that’s not bad at all; if you and your chums are planning on hanging for a while.
Service staff members are very friendly and accommodating :)
Only thing that sucks is that the parking structure charges $ 8 in the evenings… when we go. So if you’re planning to have dinner in the area, or even at Kavika’s (I have yet to try the fare there — but I’ve looked at the menu and it doesn’t seem too bad), I would suggest to maybe come around 7 or 8 and enter the parking structure when you get a ticket (no pre-​paid charge) and by the time the evening rolls around, the gates will be open and you can leave for free; not counting what you spent on dinner :)

A solid 3-​Stars. I’m here in Long Beach visiting my little sister in school, and we came here to take advantage of their special $ 6.00-$ 8.00 Appetizer menu from 11 – 7 everyday. Their Happy Hour is also everyday from 3−7pm.
The bar area is a very spacious venue about 6 flat screen TVs surrounding all around. There is also a long fireplace in the back of the bar seating area. I can imagine Kavikas would be a great place to watch a good sports game going on.
As for our late lunch, we stuck with a few of their appetizers. While most of the apps were, for the most part, quite uneventful, the one that stood out was the North Shore Nachos. What I particularly liked about these nachos was the fact that instead of using regular tortilla chips, they used fried won-​ton skins – interesting concept.
The nachos were topped with grilled chicken, pepper jack, mozzarella and cheddar cheese, light sour cream, and topped with a yummy tropical mango salsa. Mango salsa was so refreshing, with the perfect amount of sweet and tartness of the mango, and light chili pepper flavor.
However, aside from the nachos which were different, and quite flavorful, the rest of the appetizers that we ordered were a bit of a disappointment.
We both shared the following:
Chicken Fingers, as described on the menu: with house fries, and choice of Huli Huli Sauce (I have no idea what this is), Hawaiian BBQ Sauce, and Ranch Sauce. The chicken fingers were a sad case of chicken that I’ve ever seen. While the inside of the chicken was nice and juicy, the batter was extremely dry and flavorless. Furthermore, for sauces, we received only Ranch and Ketchup for dipping, as opposed to the Huli Huli Sauce, and Hawaiian BBQ. I guess maybe Huli Huli Sauce is an exotic way of describing ketchup somewhere on this earth.
The Kalua Pork Sliders were basically pulled pork sliders with BBQ Sauce. They are described to have a grilled pineapple and Napa Cabbage to garnish, neither of which the two of us seemed to have notice.
Our server was quick, helpful, and very accommodating when I requested for a to-​go menu. He checked back on us regularly and refilled our beverages when needed in a timely manner.
Aside from a variety of so-​so appetizers, the price was reasonable for what you get during this Happy Hour. I would recommend this place for a large get-​together and to enjoy a good sports event on the numerous TVs. But for the most part, the majority appetizers (with the exception of the Nachos) failed to impress and excite me into wanting to try their main courses.

So, I made reservations for 6 PM to watch the UFC fight with some friends where they wer showing it for free.
Got there early and there were a lot of people waiting to be seated which by the way, the restaurant was only ¹⁄₃ full.
They were still setting up tables and by the time I got seated, it was 6:30 pm. Talk about poor planning.
The main menu look appealing but didn’t order from it. Ordered appetizers which are a bit pricey and not much of either. The won ton nachos weren’t that appealing, but I was hungry. Sorry, but won tons don’t go as nachos. Drinks were so so but at least on the strong side. Drink menu isn’t that great. No top shelf liquors or even middle of the line. Waitresses are somewhat ditzy… They couldn’t even remember liquors they carry and had to come back 10 minutes later to write it down.
Overall, so so… Could be a better expereince with more professional management and staff. Hey, at least I got to watch the fight.

MAAAAANNNNN… I’m busting out the all caps as this was BAD!
The only thing good about this dining experience is that I got 1,000 opentable points.
Kavikas dining space is really pretty and and the restaurant itself is huge. I loved their décor with the dark wood tables, pastel colored linen napkins, wine glasses to start on all tables, Asian inspired artwork and the in wall glass enclosed fire pit. When we arrived around 7pm the place was empty. There was only 3 other tables other than us and maybe 4 people at the bar.
The hostess was nice but did not go out of her way to be extra friendly. And our server and her helper just flat out sucked. Neither one of them had any pep in their steps and they couldn’t even bring themselves to say a «your welcome» or «no problem» or «my pleasure» when we thanked them for bringing us a refill or an extra side of sauce.
The menu was lack luster and all over the place. Their was Asian and Hawaiian influenced items and then they went to the other end of the spectrum and had Spaghetti and Meatballs as an entrée choice. It was just odd…
So we ordered the Luau Kalua Pork side Caesar Salad and the Wonton Chicken Nachos. The food was not awful but it was nothing special either. The pork was tender but was bland without the BBQ sauce, the Caesar was decent and the nachos were a creative idea but fell short of enjoyment because they were overly sweet (thank goodness I left off the tropical salsa), the chicken was bland and the cheese was not melted completely.
Maybe I was unimpressed with the food because it took @ 20 stinkin minutes for my side Caesar Salad to come out. Again there was probably only 12 guests max (including us two) in the restaurant at this time. And they only brought out the Caesar! I was like where the F is the rest of my food. Were all the cooks on their 30 minute unpaid meal break or what? I don’t know what it was but it was lame and pretty much unacceptable. Our entrees followed another 10 minutes later. I guess ticket times here do not apply.
Took forever to get a refill of our drinks, took forever to get our bill, to way to long for our lazy waitress W to walk 2 feet back over to us to collect my payment. It just sucked and I will NEVER return.
On a side note… as we were walking to the stairs to get to Kavikas you have to pass Bubba Gumps. The hostess out front, gave us a friendly «hello ladies» as we walked by. And then when walking past again as we were leaving, she said «Bye, have a great night». This was just crazy as we received better service from the hostess out front of a restaurant that we didn’t even dine at compared to the service at the restaurant we paid to eat at.
So skip Kavikas and dine at Bubbas. Not sure how their food is but at least you will get a friendly greeting and a sincere exit acknowledgment from the hostess.
Kavikas you SUCK!