The Rim

Thank you Michelle. You are amazing, don't ever forget that. Wishing you happiness always. You will find where you want to be. Thank you for all that you do, and thank you for our conversation. Be well be happy

The worst chicken sandwich Ive ever had. Service was slow and unattentive. The location is obviously really nice and its really hard to get a good meal in the area. We stayed in Hawaii for 10 days and this restaurant was the worst.

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 1

Service: 1

Just an old school good time

Atmosphere: 5

Service: 5

Absolutely loved it! Awesome service! Great atmosphere FOOD WAS AMAZING!!! Thank you Chef Jocelyn for always providing excellent service and amazing dishes from appetizers to desserts!!! Highly recommended

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

I have lived in Hawaii for 30 years and have been to many high end restaurants. The RIM you are paying for the view.
The good: service, the drinks, dessert, and view. The bad: food was mediocre with high prices. I ordered the ono fresh fish entree. The piece of fish was tiny, overcooked, and tasted fishy. The best part of the meal was the side salad. For $54 this is the worst fresh fish entree I have ever had. If you decide to dine here, I highly recommend you do not order the fresh fish.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 2

Service: 5

Where is the love?
Wanted to love this place but no cigar. This reservation-only establishment is coasting on some long lost glory days, I'd guess back in the nineties maybe? Who knows? The food was overpriced but that was expected for a hotel restaurant in a scenic area. Unfortunately, once the sun sets the windows turn black and the restaurant only has it's mid-at-best food to recommend itself.
Sadly the dishes were not very well planned or executed, revealing a sorry understanding of food and the balance of flavor. My dish was overly sweet for no reason and my partner's was the opposite.
Someone somewhere is just following orders, making familiar things without thinking too hard.
But the cream of the crap crop was watching a buser carry a huge tray of dishes, drop a cloth napkin to the floor and watch a waitress walk towards the napkin not to pick it up, not to step over it, but to step directly on it as she continued to her destination. Um... Hello? I proceeded to watch 5 more members of staff walk past (one on) the napkin and just leave it there, while there were still plenty of guests in the dinning room. It might still be there, as we had to leave before I saw it picked up.
Someone somewhere has lost the passion and the fire for this place and it shows.

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 2

Service: 2

Let me start with this...it wasn't a bad meal. That said, it wasn't fantastic ether. Had to send one entree back, steak was obliterated (I could tell before it was even cut into). Kinda sad that it even hit the table as a well done steak when rare was ordered. The catch of the day was good, and well cooked, but nothing spectacular. Overall for the price, it fell short (even taking hawaii prices into account).

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 3

Service: 4

Our favorites are the chicken wings, pizza, fish n chips, and poke stack. But there are many other choices.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Our experience here was comically bad (so thankfully it’ll make for funny stories later.)
First, it was probably the slowest service I have ever experienced. It took 15 minutes to be seated when the restaurant was mostly empty and we had a reservation (and I know reservations aren’t a guarantee that you’ll be seated at an exact time, so at this point I was still understanding and patient.) It was less understandable when my 9 year old wasn’t provided a kids menu and we needed to wait an additional 10 minutes or more for the server to provide one. Then even less understandable when we sat at the table for more than 30 minutes no longer touching our food, waiting for the server to check in and offer dessert. Which never happened. He just provided a box and our check; which was disappointing because despite my boredom and agitation with the wait, I really was interested in dessert. I had seen online to anticipate a 90 minute dining experience. I assumed this was due to the upscale nature of the restaurant, but unfortunately it was just incredibly slow.
When my crab legs were brought out there were no utensils with the dish to crack the legs. After looking around to see if someone was coming with them and not seeing anyone, my husband and I set to work on them by hand. After we got through almost third of them, the server came over with the utensils. In addition to all of that, bread wasn’t delivered to our table until midway through our meal (so maybe 45 minutes to an hour after we were seated?)

The restaurant website boasts that you have a view of the crater anywhere in the restaurant. I suppose that’s true. If I leaned back to see around the table of 6 in front of the window I could see parts of the crater, as long as the children from that table didn’t stand up in front of the windows. Not that there was much to see (not the restaurant’s fault. They don’t control the lava.)

The food itself was overpriced for what it was. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t what I would expect for the prices. The kid’s dishes were well priced, and very well portioned though.

All in all, I wouldn’t really recommend The Rim at Volcano House if someone asked me about it. I personally wish we had used our time to continue driving the crater rim and exploring then hit up the McDonald’s back in Hilo; but we at least got to see some lava (but not from our table. We had to step outside for that.)

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 2

Service: 2

I ordered a pizza, I won't recommend. It's was dry, hard and too salty

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 3

Service: 5

Beautiful backdrop of the volcano with tables along big windows for viewing while you eat. The menu was great. Prices what I expected of Hawaii and fine dining. Both my husband and I loved our meal. Our waiter was helpful and attentive.

I guess you’re paying for the view but otherwise food is overpriced and not very good. Lunch is better than dinner so make dinner plans elsewhere. Even basic food (mashed potatoes) was over cooked, over salted, and just tasted off.

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 1

Service: 1

No recommendation. A restaurant that shows off more than it's worth. Even though the store was only half full, we had to wait 20 minutes until we were placed. As a greeting from the kitchen there were cheap baked-on rolls. The Margharita was ok, so was the mocktail, but both had cheap straws that were way too tight, so you could get almost nothing out. The steak was full of tendons, the potato mash brownish. The fish itself (mahi) was fine, the sauce was not homemade, the rice was unseasoned and a spoon to take it out of the bowl was not available either. The cream brulee was not properly caramelized. If the restaurant wasn't so expensive and gave itself such a noble coat of paint, it would be quite ok, but it doesn't reach its stated and priced standard that way. Our service was very nice but also not attentive. The young gentlemen who bring the food are doing quite a show. A good restaurant doesn't need that. You better go next door to the bar for dinner.

The menu was limited. Burgers were not an option in the restaurant. My fish dinner was good but the steak was tough. They were out of Caesar salad by 6 pm. Grilled red pepper soup was the soup of the day. Really? In Hawaii? The service was poor - brusque, impersonal and inattentive. We asked for a second round of bread and never got it. We had to ask for the dessert menu twice. It was a boring menu so we decided not to get anything. We never saw the waiter after he delivered the dessert menu or I would’ve ordered a coffee at least. For the price the service and the menu should have been a lot better. It’s doubtful we’ll ever return. It’s a poorly run tourist trap

Hostess was rude. She seated us in the corner next to the bar. Bar staff had obnoxious language. Hostess refused to seat us to another empty table. Waiter was flippantly rude. Food was lukewarm. There were lots of empty tables. I sat next the emergency door with no view, while tables with volcano views sat empty. Would not recommend for dinner unless you like rude staff and cold food. I think the hotel is tired of tourists. A big disappointment. Maybe it’s time for vending machine food at this historic hotel? The hotel staff definitely doesn’t want to work there.