On our recent trip to Oahu, we arrived in Waikiki around 9 pm on Saturday 10/19. We had endured a 23 hour travel day and flown through several time zones. After we got checked in and settled into our room, we decided to go out to find a late night snack and some adult beverages. The girl at the Front Desk mentioned a few places which included the nearby Maui Brewing location. Perfect!
Tired and hungry we wandered down the unfamiliar streets in search of Maui Brewing. We completely missed it the first time by. When we were finally able to locate it, we were told we couldn’t come in because they were having a private Halloween party. Bummer. A swing and a miss. We had to find somewhere else to go for our beer and snacks.
We didn’t give up though. The next night we thought we would try again. This time we were able to get seated right away on their outdoor patio. When our Waiter greeted us, we told him we were going to order a flight of their beer. We find that it’s a fun way to taste different things and then settle on one to order as a pint. He nodded and said he would check back with us in a few minutes. Well come to find out they were changing out their keg system so only a few select varieties were even available. Of course, the ones I wanted to try were not. Knowing this was our plan, I wondered why our Waiter had not warned us about this at all before we deliberated over the menu choosing beer we couldn’t even get. So we chose the only 4 beers that were still available and an order of Huli Huli chicken wings to get started off with.
We waited. And we waited. I watched as our Waiter flitted around chatting with other Servers. Our flight was gone and still no food. No return from the Waiter to see if we wanted another beer, which we did. As someone with experience in the restaurant service industry, I have higher expectations for Waitstaff than what we were receiving. We had planned to spend our evening there, order some entrees and enjoy the band that was getting set up. At last the Bar Back delivered our Wings, but he couldn’t take our beer order (of course). He must have mentioned it to the Waiter who immediately flew over to the table to grab our beverage order.
FYI: The wings were pretty tasty and we really liked the Big Swell beer.
Again, we waited and waited and waited. When we eventually got our beer, I suggested to my husband that I was kind of over our Maui Brewing experience. I was sad to have to leave without a proper dinner, and the band sounded very promising, but this type of service just didn’t work for me so we left.
The Scoop
This is exactly the kind of place my husband and I enjoy going to. We were super excited and even willing to make 2 attempts to try them out. But we were disappointed in the end.
- The food and beverage prices were on the high side (even in comparison to those we found at similar places in Waikiki the previous night and later on in our trip)
- Not having most of their beers available was a pretty big let down (who changes out their keg system on the weekend?….That’s a Monday thing for sure.)
- The service was simply awful with the Waitstaff all standing in bunches hanging out with each other instead of waiting on their guests.
- The food was very slow taking a good 40 minutes for one appetizer to arrive.
Nobody likes having a bad dining experience, especially when they are on vacation. Even though we didn’t enjoy our visit to Maui brewing, if we were ever in that area again, I might still give them another chance. Maybe it was just a really off night for them. I don’t always expect a home run, but after 2 swings and misses with us, they would for sure have to at least lay down a solid hit next time.
The World According to Dev 