Mai Tai Lounge
Editor’s Note: This review was first published in Top Maui Restaurants 2012. Mai Tai Lounge has since closed, but you can still taste the mai tai that inspired (ummm, undermined?) this review by going here.
Review of Mai Tai Lounge, Lahaina, published in Top Maui Restaurants 2012:
When we think of the Mai Tai Lounge we feel all soft and fuzzy. We think it’s because we usually go at around 4pm, when the view from the open-air lanai is all hazy with golden afternoon light and the little boats in the harbor line up, and the water sprays the side of the building, and we start with a mai tai, which is served in a wide, low bowl with a long straw and, when we drink it, we smile at each other and then we take another big sip and the people we are with start being really funny, like really, really funny, and then we drink some more, and have a nacho or something and then Molly realizes she’s all done with her drink and maybe she has to pee and she goes to the bathroom, but sheesh these chairs are really tall and she realizes that they make very, very strong mai tais that taste very good, which is what she thinks about while she is in the bathroom, which is very clean, she notices, and when she gets back to the table hey, James ordered another mai tai for her, which she probably shouldn’t have, but at this point she knows she’ll have to wait much later than planned to drive home anyway, so why not have another yummy mai tai, and oh, we were planning on ordering food, too, but then maybe we don’t need to order food because we just had a lot of pineapple juice and guava juice and lime juice and some nachos and isn’t that enough to get us through, and maybe we should go somewhere really great for dinner, because after all we deserve it, a really excellent meal is so wonderful and so now it’s sunset and we’ve been here over two hours and James wants to go and the server was sooooooooo nice so he leaves a big tip and then we take a long walk to sober up a little, and now it’s like whatever, 8pm and we’re still in a really good mood, but we’re hungry and can’t drive all the way back to the South side when we’re so hungry and maybe still don’t trust ourselves to drive so we decide to go to David Paul’s Island Grill and we spend way more on dinner than we meant to that night but that’s OK because the food is soooooo good, and when we get out, the plumeria trees are all dropping their flowers and, even though we usually don’t like Lahaina because the whole town feels like a tourist trap, tonight it just seems so magical.
Closed for Business
Address: 839 Front St., Lahaina, West Maui
Parking: Street
Phone: 808-661-5288
Website: www.maitailounge.com
December 16, 2010 @ 8:58 pm
We had such a great time at the Mai Tai Lounge the first time we went, I wanted to go there for my birthday. Unfortunately, our second experience was anything but the enjoyment we had the first time round. After noticing our drinks were very, very weak, we also noticed that my husbands ceramic mug contained a huge chip at the top, then we noticed that there were many chips, even my mug had chips all across the top.
We decided to go elsewhere and not say anything because we didn’t want to ruin my birthday, and asked for the bill, which is where it went from bad to worse. We tried using a coupon they gave us from our first visit and the manager guy came over and said he would not honor this coupon, because we needed to present it as we placed our order. Okay, we could accept that, but he carried on being loud and rude telling us that it says right there on the coupon, that you need to present it upon placing your order. Then he continued on telling us that the bartender remembers us from the last time we were there and that he only charged us for two lite beers, rather than mai tai’s. This cannot be true because I remember my husband sputtering about the bill for, not two, but four mai tai’s, it was not cheep. As a final exchange after we paid the bill, my husband said, “thank you for sharing all that with us”. And this is where he started yelling, “you don’t have to be rude about it” and kept repeating this as we exited.
This guy was so loud and obnoxious, the couple at the next table turned around and said he was sorry, but couldn’t help but overhear the conversation and that this guy is RUDE. This couple by the way also picked up and left. They wished us that they hoped the rest of our evening would be better.
Also, I almost forgot, this same guy was giving this poor lady a hard time because she ordered some drink and thought that she could take home the mug. Apparently, she needed to double that order, before she would get a free mug. This was happening as we entered.
I would not recommend the Mai Tai Lounge to anyone and I wish I knew what I can do to influence there getting “The Best” recognition in the future.