Tahiti Nui

We have been here so many times over the last 6 years and have never been disappointed. Great food, serves and view, you can’t get that Hawaiian feeling much more then this. LOVE THIS PLACE !!!
Kayaking in Hanalei then a late lunch, perfect day :))

Great mai tai, yummy huli huli chicken pizza, and I devoured the poison cru. They magically seated our party of 9 within minutes, and never gave us the eye-​roll you come to expect with large groups. Live music came on around 10 and had a nice vibe. Friendly staff. Good memories and a fun night.

As far as a local Hanalei bar experience, I don’t think it gets more local or authentic than this.
It’s not even a question of the décor or service, it is just a institution that caters to laid back folks with fun and good times in mind. The musicians I saw there on just one night were super,
from bluegrassy cajun to alt Americana. The offer Maitai’s as their signature drink, I was not impressed but the Tahitian beer, Hinano, was awfully good in the bottle.
The people working the bar and the crowd were chill and fun to hang with. Lots of us dancing and all had a hela good time. Can’t talk about the food but the drinks were reasonable. It’s a must visit for evening entertainment, if you are hanging in Hanalei for the evening.

6 of us went to their family luau and loved it. Casual, small venue probably about 80 people. We had front row seats and could feel the fire from the fire dance. You went outside to view pig coming out of ground (if you want) and you can taste right as they take it from the pig to the chafing dishes. Pork, Chicken and Fish with lots of sides. Free Maitais for the first hour, very good. Friendly family.

Decided on this place based on reviews. The bartender told me they haven’t had food available until 5 pm for awhile. That was why we went. Show up after 5. We went to Kalypso next door and had good drinks and appetizers

This is the famous bar from The Decedents. — real dive — real fun. Known for the Mai Tai’s so guess what we had. The bar counter is dark and old and the bar stools are woobly, but it’s a great place to people watch after the beach from the outdoor patio.
Pizzas were huge and prices were easy on the wallet.
Aloha!

This was a nice little venue. Small but felt like you were in someone’s home
Food and dancing was entertaining
I would recommend if you want a luau experience

One of my favorite places here in KauaiI highly recommend this place the food and drink so wonderful and you get that aloha feeling
It’s important to live aloha live mahalo

Simple. When the service makes you feel patently unwanted nothing else matters. A party of four, we get seated and all seems fine until two of us get up to go to the car to get a shirt as the air got a tad cool for one for us. Upon stepping away from the table the bachan (Hawaiians will know the term) at the front of house asks the other two at the table, «So, you want your food to go?» This as they continue to hover over other tables looking to usher patrons out of the door so they can seat new customers. The pressure to leave never ended with the same lady grabbing every almost nearly completed plate away from the table and making it abundantly clear we needed to eat like we sat down at McDonald’s, not a dinner restaurant.
Lest anyone think the treatment only applied to us, every other party not seated at the bar experienced the same treatment. We wanted to laugh but the reality of a $ 100+ bill while feeling like the old statement, «y’all ain’t gotta go but you gotta get the heck out of here,» didn’t quite add levity for us.
Tomorrow we will just absorb the mediocre of Kalypso across the street because at least they willingly let us drink and run up our tab instead of testing to see if we can eat four entrees and two pizzas in 20 minutes so they can flip the table.
P. S. Ordinarily the entire scene would have represented Kauai well what with the local singer crooning about spam and beef stew but not when we ate pizza and salad under the watch of Nurse Wratched-​atabe.

The service here was pretty awful.
The attitude of the staff was poor. The food and drinks were mediocre. Otherwise this was at least an attempt at a «Hawaiian» theme.
It was also overpriced.
I’d advise going somewhere else.

Very busy on a Wednesday at 7 so we thought it would be great! Got seated in the back wine bar so we thought maybe the food would come out more quickly. My dad ordered the Kauai shrimp and my boyfriend ordered the Mac nut crusted chicken. They both said they were delicious and came out relatively quickly!
The reason I give the 2 stars is because of the wait for my food. I got a pizza. I did read the other reviews saying it takes forever, but nothing else appealed to me. After my dad and boyfriend got their food, I was told it would be about 10 minutes. 1 hour later still no pizza. BUT Erin our bartender gave me the pizza for free. So at least she tried to comp for the awful wait time. Still waiting for the pizza but for now I’ll assume it’s the best pizza I’ve ever had hahaha!

Looking for the aloha feeling? This is the place! Simple, easy, slow… this is Tahiti Nui and I’m goooood with it. One bartender worked the whole place during lunch. Simple and easy I say because at lunch they have burger, fish, or pork sandwich. The food and drinks are good, brah. The atmosphere brings you back to 1965. This is a must go.

«Welcome to Jurassic Park», auntie says on the mic. The thing I enjoyed the most about Tahiti Nui was the live entertainment. Auntie plays some mean ‘uke, with a trio that includes another ukelele and a guitar. She also has some dancers. We also enjoyed talking to her as she came by and asked everyone where they’re from.
Tahiti Nui is a local dive bar with charming Hawaiian flair. The food was hit or miss. We tried the ahi carpaccio, which is thin slices of ahi tuna drizzled with mayo with toasted bread. I thought the dish was a little too salty. We also tried the macadamia nut panko crusted ono. Yum! The fish was very tasty. The dish included purple sweet potato, which we had never seen before but was so delicious.
The restaurant has tons of parking on the side, and in the back, unlike some of the other restaurants in the Hanalei Bay area.

We were told by our friend who comes to Princeville 2 or 3 times a year, this was one of the best places in Hanalei to eat. We arrived right when they opened for lunch. Went with the Maitai — which was good. Then order a pizza and salad along with some beers. 45 min later the pizza finally came. Not sure what happened with the order, but 45 min to cook our pizza and we were the only ones in the restaurant? Our bill ended up around $ 80.
Definitely not a place to come for food. Heard this was a good place to come at night. Will try again when we come back to Kauai.
Visited September 2015

When I was researching for my trip to Kauai, I searched tiki bar on Unilocal and found Tahini Nui. This is one of those old fashioned bars that have been around forever with all kinds of crap on the walls, heavy handed bartenders and local musicians playing on a Tuesday night.
It’s really easy for bars that cater to tourists to be blasé and poopoo at the out of towners even though it’s us who they are hoping will tip high. This is not that place. It’s obvious that all the waitresses are locals. The bartender was great, I watched her make at least 30 Mai Tais the hour or so we were there.
We ordered the ahi appetizer and the house combo pizza. The ahi was fantastic. It’s raw ahi kind of in a pâté style spread out on the plate with capers, shallots and a basil aoli drizzled on top, served with homemade rosemary toast. One of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Honestly.
The pizza was good too, hand rolled crust, could have been cooked a bit longer to be crispier but the toppings were heavy and there was plenty of cheese.
Nice touch with the local music, it really added to the experience.

The only stars they deserve is for the entertainment. Awesome live music + the beautiful hula woman.
This place is full of a bunch of haoles. We were a party of six who ordered two cocktails, seared rib eye appetizer & two large pizzas (#5 & #9). Our total wait time in this place was an hour and a half. The cocktails were watered down & I could’ve had better frozen pizza made at home by my ten year old niece.
Once we just finished signing our bill, a little old lady came to our table & said, «if you guys are going to sit there & use your phone, I have a party of six waiting.» That must’ve been THE rudest thing you can say to paying customers who are trying to enjoy dinner on their vacation.
Bring your wallet & empty stomachs elsewhere.
Zai jian.

Outta pizza. Outta rice. Outta Ahi. Outta Ono. But we got Mahi… That is what we were told when we went to Tahiti Nui on a Friday night. Well, despite being out of 75% of the dinner menu, we still had stellar drinks, enjoyed some music and dancing with the locals (way more fun after the drinks), and had a good evening.

I should have paid more attention to the negative Unilocal reviews. I’ll admit I was a sucker to try the «best Mai Tai» on Kauai. We came here for dinner the other night. It was my wife, my 2 year old son, and myself. We ordered the Poissen Cru, a spicy hawaiian pizza, and the famous Mai Tai.
The menu raves how the pizza is popular for the kaloa pig or the bbq chicken. We were tired of chicken for the week, so initially wanted the pig. When we tried to order it, we were told that they were out of it, and were for days.
The Hawaiian pizza was good, but not worth the $ 25 price tag (even for Hawaii). I would have expected a reasonable price would have been about $ 20. The Poissen Cru was OK, but wasn’t anything to rave about. I would suggest skipping it. The Mai Tai was also OK. I don’t think it was the «best» I have had. A bit sweet for my taste.
Main reason for the 2 stars is just that Tahiti Nui is understaffed. We barely saw our waitress, and service was extremely slow. There are better options for dinner on the North Shore, so I suggest skipping the over hyped Tahiti Nui and go somewhere else.

We’ve been coming to this place for over 10 years now. My husband loves the mai tais. I’ve noticed in the past couple years the food has improved TREMENDOUSLY!!! Last year we found out that Melissa who owned Red Hot Mommas (one of our fave places — so sad to see it gone) now works the kitchen at the Nui. Melissa — if you ever read this — we are BIG fans of yours!
We love the ribs and the salad greens are extremely fresh. We went tonight and lucky for us — Michael Keale was singing. His voice is so silky smooth that I bought his CD so we could add it to our ‘vacation vibe’ playlist on our iPhones. :) His wife accompanies him with her beautiful hula.
Jay (the tall skinny bald guy) who has been our waiter in the past, was hosting tonight and I noticed he did excellent job facilitating the groups of hungry folks arriving and getting them seated or setting the wait time expectation. Tahiti Nui fills up pretty quickly so realize that if you are planning on going. The service is always friendly.
So if you want to feel the Kauai vibe — this is the place! Sorry to hear that Little Richie has passed away (he had a cameo in the movie The Descendents) glad I was able to tell him I saw him in the movie and I asked him to take a picture with me the last time I saw him. I teased him and said after I spotted him in the movie, I had a hard time focusing on George Clooney.
What makes this place exceptional is the cool moments that have happened in the Nui. Not only has George Clooney filmed in the Nui, but Elizabeth Taylor would frequent there in the 60’s and even Pat Bennatar come one night and sang there. We like Tahiti Nui so much that we eat there a couple times during our annual visit to Kauai. See you folks soon — we’re bringing our friends next time! Hope you do the same.

Tahiti Nui is a great place to stop by for happy hour or some live music. It’s a dive so don’t expect anything more than a laid back ambiance and some good libations. Also, a little piece of Kauai movie history since a scene from The Descendants, between Beau Bridges and George Clooney, was filmed there.
They are known for their Mai Tais, and they live up to the hype. We originally planned on going to dinner at Bar Acuda but my husband wanted to stay and not feel rushed. We ordered the poisson cru, since that was our go to on our Honeymoon in Tahiti last year. It was far from the preparation we are used to but it wasn’t bad. We also had a pizza which I thought was okay but nothing special.
Like many advise stick to the drinks and skip the food.