Bad restaurant
 

My family and I recently returned from our Hawaiian trip. I'll post a trip report later.

But first, I want to remark that I've found what must be one of the worst restaurants I've ever come across in 30 years of traveling around the country. This is the Lava Rock Cafe in the town of Volcano on the Big Island. Insects, dirty dishes/utensils and poor food (even by fast food standards.) And when we were ready to leave, my daughter wanted a take out box to bring the uneated portion of a burrito like wrap. Naturally, it was dirty, it looked like it was possible it was used before.

Just a warning - stay away.

Let me get this straight. AFTER you ate there and had witnessed insects, dirty dishes and utensils and knew the food was bad -- you still wanted to take food with you? What's wrong with this picture?

"I" didn't want to take anything.

After receiving the dirty take out box, I went over to the counter where I saw they kept them, and pulled a clean out of the middle of the stack I saw the waitress get them from. The decision to take the wrap was one of my kids decisions, not mine.

PS, that leftover wasn't consumed in any case since it sat in the car (out of refridgeration) while we went to the chain of craters road to view the lava at night. Just as well.

I would report this place to the local health department. It's not too late, I'm sure you can find this info on the web.

Oh, I get it. YOU weren't going to eat the "bad food" sandwich that was possibly contaminated with insects and filth. You were going to allow your child to eat it. OK, that's different then. My apology.

This thread is making me laugh. Years ago we decided to try out a new restaurant in our area. The food was terrible. There were 5 of us and each ordered a different thing and each of us stoped eating after a few bites because the food just tasted so bad.

I was about to complain to the manager about how the food was so bad that we couldn't eat it when my husband asked for TO GO BOXES so he could take all of that terrible food home! There went THAT argument!

Patrick, they obviously ate there, and I must say that I have eaten in places where flies were landing on the table and I've had to wipe the fork off before I ate with it, and I've lived to tell the tale.

Don't call poor jpiwaron out on her mothering skills. It isn't gentlemanly, and I know you are a gentleman!

I usually keep quiet on things like this, but in this case, I do have to chime in with Patrick.

Why in the world would you allow your "kids" to even make such a decision? Just say NO!

This reminds me of my other favorite complaint about a restaurant: "The food is inedible, and the portions are really small."

I usually keep quiet too, but it's obvious that these folks had ALREADY eaten the food - if the first half of the burrito didn't make the child sick, I don't think the leftovers would either. Anyway, if those kids are anything like mine, jpiwaron probably knew that burrito would never get eaten.

I would have summoned someone long before the end of the meal. Being that my husband is in the restaurant business, I know that if you don't tell management something is wrong, they don't know. At least give them the chance to make something right.

They may have a new cook that needs adjustments, a waiter that needs to be fired, a food vendor that is delivering sub par goods, machinery that needs to be replaced etc.

I always take leftovers, good or bad to feed the birds, seagulls, and assorted cats/rodents/possums in my neighborhood.

Someone with a bad experience will tell 50 people, someone with a good experience may tell ten people.

Restaurants are going to intentionally sell you a bad experience. They would like to stay in business.

That should read:

Restaurants are NOT going to intentionally sell you a bad experience. They would like to stay in business.

I'm sorry for being "ungentlemanly", but I guess I really don't understand this. You are warning people to stay away from a place because it isn't fit to eat at. Yet you allow a daughter to take food with her from that same place to eat later. Either the food is good and safe or it isn't. If you'd opt to take food with you to eat later, why wouldn't you also go back to eat there? Sorry, I really don't get the difference. Once I'd see such filth, I certainly wouldn't and COULDN'T eat another bite from that place either at the table or even out of a CLEAN to-go box.

Not everybody acts perfectly rationally all the time. Maybe she was trying to teach her daughter not to be wasteful. Who knows? Either way, she's telling us not to eat there. So do, or don't, but if you don't have anything nice to say then..........

LOL Patrick, this reminds me of a movie (Monty Python?) when the parents gave the child the first taste, to see if it was tainted.
My habit is when I walk into a place and sit down, if there is dirt or an insect, I leave. (Usually taking the kids with me lol)
But this is a good warning, thanks jpiwaron :D

Patrick-

How do you know it was not an adult child? Even a teenager is perfectly capable of making the take-out decision without having to get the go ahead from Mom or Dad. And God knows they eat anything!

Shaz60, Didn't the mother say SHE got the to-go box?

"I went over to the counter where I saw they kept them, and pulled a clean out of the middle of the stack I saw the waitress get them from."

Maybe she got it because the kid wouldn;t shut up. WHO KNOWS? Who got the box or not is beside the point, and unrelated to TRAVEL. It's a crappy, fly infested restaurant, and we shouldn't go there. Let's all thank the OP for the info, rather than chastising her mothering skills, and move on.

I love these forums for the info, but the judgmental opinions given (and not asked for) just astound me.

Lay off "Ungentlemanly Patrick" will you? Why if you are on vacation, would you even take the rest of the burrito, knowing that it would never make it to refrigeration.

And, if the child is still hungry..just drive thru a "clean" fast food joint and feed her.

This has really turned silly now. So some of you are saying, "yes, warn US to eat there but if you don't have the gumption to tell you daughter (I don't care if she's 3 or 35) not to eat there then that's just fine". Doesn't anybody else think this is strange? Does the original poster care more about the health of strangers on FODORS than she does of her own offspring? Give me a break.

So why am I making an issue about this? Because of the simple logic that's why. I find it hard to believe that a person finds the food at a place so bad or dangerous that she warns total strangers NOT to go there, but thinks it's ok if a family member does. As I said in my first post, What's wrong with this picture?

But again, thanks for the warning. This sounds like a place I wouldn't eat -- nor take carry out from.

Patrick, logically you make perfect sense. I just worry about people being disouraged to post their opinions about places because they constantly get jumped on for every little inconsistency in their posts. I didn't mean to pick on you personaly for doing that; it's just that it's something that's pretty consistent in these forums and it's kept me away from them.

Was there a peephole in the restaurant?

&quot;The place is filthy, has bugs, and I hate the food. I can assure you that this is the <b>next to last</b> time I ever eat this food!!&quot;

Patrick, I never understood the poster to say that she thought the food was tainted or what she was eating was actually bad in a &quot;make you sick&quot; kind of way.

I stil contend that what she did makes sense even if you wouldn't do it given that her family had all ALREADY eaten the food. If she had ordered, said &quot;whoa, this food is putrid, I'm not eating any of it,&quot; and then let her daughter take her food to go, well, then I would agree with your point.

Sorry for not being a professional writer and more precise with my words.

First, I'm the father. I also did all the planning for this trip.

Second, the bugs were a couple small ant like things crawling up the wall next to my 18 yr old son. This led us to wonder what may be walking around the kitchen. However, I don't recall seeing any other of those insects elsewhere in the dining room. That doesn't mean they weren't there.

Third, not every dish or utensil was dirty. In regard to the dishes, they didn't appear until the food was brought out. The parts not covered by food seemed o.k. With regard to utensils, some looked o.k., a couple didn't. I grabbed utensils from an adjacent table to get some that also looked o.k.

Fourth, the food didn't look noticably bad in terms of &quot;if I eat this, I die&quot; it was bad in terms of this burger is not up to par, it's dry, I don't like the bun and so on. We didn't notice anything tainting the food. Daughter, 16, didn't really like the wrap she got, but wanted the remainder to go anyway. The fries must've been at least edible since I saw that my wife a daughter shared the ones they had. I don't recall what son had. I also don't order my kids or wife around. They're old enough to decide for themselves what they will or won't eat. Overall, this meal was pretty bad in terms of food quality and apparently indifferent preparation. Even by burger joint standards.

Next, the waitress was pretty careless to bring an obviously dirty carryout box. Not that it mattered in the end with the the non consumption of the carryout. We also didn't get much attention from her for things like drink refills, not that I wanted any.

What I wanted was to keep quiet and get out as soon as possible. I also didn't want to waste any of my precious vacation time in a confrontation with anyone.

Sorry to imply that eating at this establishment was likely to send someone to the local hospital. It wasn't that at all. It's just not a place for good food. It managed to make McDonald's look good. But that's just my opinion.

The choices for spur of the moment dining in the town Volcano are fairly limited. You could choose to eat at Kilauea Lodge where the food is superb, but that requires a reservation made far in advance. Had I known how this dinner was going to turn out, I would just have drove into the national park and ate at their restaurant.

I'll try to be more precise in the future. But I suppose there may be logic gaps in even this attempt at clarification.

I agree with speaking up or leaving without ordering!

This past weekend, we stopped at a Taco Bell. Since we had been traveling, we went to the restroom 1st. It was filthy...obviously in a chronic condition!

I was surprised to see DH in the order line when I came out. He was just about to order when I whispered in his ear that I wouldn't eat at the place! We left!

As bad as it was, the Taco Bell we stopped at on Oahu told us they didn't even HAVE a restroom for it's customers!

We experienced this in a McDonald's on Oahu, but they at least let us WALK BEHIND THE COUNTER, THROUGH THE FOOD PREP AREA to use the employee restaurant, which was also being used as a STOCK ROOM!

Aren't there Federal Laws requiring 'facilities' to be provided by eating establishments?

Belle

The Thai restaurant in Volcano is GREAT!

I'm with Patrick on this one.

jpiwaron -
We will be going to Volcano in the spring. Thanks for your kind warning. You should feel free to post on this site without having each and every statement picked apart. Nor should you be required to have a Ph.D in &quot;LOGIC&quot;!

Just checked tripadvisor. The reviews on the restaurant have been great so far.

Thai Thai is #1 on the list for Volcano. Really, really good Thai food in a simple setting.

Maybe it was just a bad night for jpjwaron's family?

In light of the new description of what was wrong with the restaurant, I certainly wish to retract the whole thing about taking the food with you. Somehow I had an totally different picture of the entire thing from the phrase &quot;Insects, dirty dishes/utensils and poor food (even by fast food standards.&quot;

When you mentioned &quot;insects&quot;, I wasn't picturing a couple ants climbing up a wall.

And if the restaurant you now describe was &quot;one of the worst restaurants I've ever come across in 30 years of traveling around the country&quot; I must say -- you've been lucky.

My apologies if the whole thing got overblown, but at least I now understand where you were coming from on this -- I think.

Patrick -

Perhaps I have been lucky. Normally, I never ever see any bugs of any kind in the places I've eaten at. I've been known to skip meals rather than eating in just anywhere at all. This time was different, we had been hiking all day in Kilauea and were really hungry.

As for the rest of it, the utensils and the take out box, those things didn't leave me with a good feeling about the establishment.

Thai Thai had sounded interesting to me, but knowing my family, they weren't going to be interested. :(

Our time in Volcano was limited, so the overall visit for dinner was Kilauea Lodge on night one (excellent), Lava Rock on night 2 (bad, IMO) and then we prepared dinner (such as it was) in the cottage we had rented with food bought at a grocery store in Hilo.

That night was great. Eating pizza, drinking Hawaiian beer and watching the local flock of turkeys strut by the deck. The sun going down, gentle breezes and so many stars! Who knew there were that many! There's too much light pollution where I live to see the fainter ones.

I just want to say that I have eaten at the Lava Rock Cafe in Volcano numerous times. The service is usually very slow and indifferent, the food is okay and I've never noticed any problem with cleanliness. There are not a lot of choices in Volcano and the Lava Rock works for us occasionally. I just don't go there if I am in a hurry, or wanting a special meal. I would not necessarily classify it as a &quot;bad&quot; restaurant. I had some great Punalu'u bread french toast there once. Just IMHO.

I'm always a little suspicious of these types of posts -- on the internet just because someone says something doesn't necessarily make it so.

Anyway, here's the website for the place in question:

http://www.volcanovillage.com/LavaRock.htm

Wow, they have a nice website! It's hard to predict how an individual dining experience will play out. One of the worst meals I've ever had was at the renowned Sarento's in Maui!

&quot;Daughter, 16, didn't really like the wrap she got, but wanted the remainder to go anyway.&quot;

Now I get it.

People who have a bad meal (or just have an axe to grind) like to think that they can bring down a business singlehandedly by posting something negative on the internet, never stopping to think that they'll be hurting everyone EXCEPT the owner.

This post made me chuckle. But my husband and I went to Lava Rock cafe several years ago and had a pleasant experience. Although I don't remember the food being spectacular, my husband remembers the hamburger fondly and I had chili and we're still here to talk about it. We also enjoyed some nice music by a guitar player/singer there. There isn't too much nightlife in Volcano, so we remember the musician fondly.

Al, you're wrong.

I *never* have an axe to grind. I don't care if they remain open, choose to close down or whatever.

When I was researching my trip I came across their website. Our experience there in no way lived up to the kind of place the web site would suggest that they are.

I merely reported what what happened during our visit and our take on them. Your mileage may vary. The place has been open for a while, I suppose there's plenty of people that like them enough to keep coming back. Especially local residents of Volcano since there's not very many dining choices around there if you want to eat out.

One other thing - precisely how do my negative remarks about that place hurt anyone at all? I think people would be well advised that this is not a particularly good place to eat. It won't harm you do so, but it also won't be very good. There's a couple of other better choices around there. One of those would be a better deal.

Honestly a few ants isn't the worst thing in the world. It really sucks though when you get dirty dishes, poor quality food and slow service.
For some reason when I first read your review, seemed like there were roaches climbing the walls or something. I guess it's hard to tell what someone experienced by reading only a paragraph.
I'm sorry some people are so negative, thinking that you have some sort of axe to grind.
I laughed pretty hard at some of the first responses. How many of these people will actually to that island and have a choice between those exact restaurants, and will they remember this review? Not very likely.
I always appreciate people that say, maybe you should think twice before eating here, or this is the best food I've ever had.
Don't let them be so nit picky. You were just trying to warn people against a potentially bad restaurant.