Big Kahuna

Was hanging out downtown during DragonCon and a friend and I decided to try out Big Kahuna. Bonus is that they had a Scoutmob deal. We each ordered 3 tacos. I got steak, chicken, and fish. You pick your meat and then the style. There are 8 styles to choose from. My favorite was the fish (wahoo style). The steak (I think it was Tijuana) and chicken (Korean) weren’t bad. I had a strawberry mojito, as well. I was debating between a few of their strawberry cocktails and wish I had gone with another. I wouldn’t mind revisiting, but it wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t.

I got the Big Kahuna Burger with fire-​grilled chicken and told them to add on avocado + a side of fries. I wasn’t a big fan of the bun they use on their burger — kind of seem dried out when I went but the chicken was on point and I enjoyed the rest of the sandwich. The fries weren’t that great either but the environment of the restaurant is super neat and it’s packed like crazy during lunch. Also — service took WAY too long. I came here with a group of co-​workers and although I understand lunch hour is busy, it shouldn’t take 35 minutes to get us our food.
p. s. Sometimes they have a Scoutmob deal going on so be on the lookout!

This restaurant has the best fish tacos I’ve ever had and the portions sizes are GOOD. Most places you get small fish tacos with a little meat but not here. I also got the gyro ‘fish’ taco and it was great! There fries are yummy too. Check them out. Parking is free in the garage which is also a plus. (at least the night we went)

I came here on a Monday, after a weekend of partying at Dragon Con. My friend was going back to Texas, and I wanted to have one last meal with her. Not sure if this a seat yourself type of establishment because there was no one at the hostess stand for a while, so we decided to seat ourselves anyway. The waitress was congenial and made good recommendations, but was a bit neglectful of the water and napkin situation. Not that big of a deal.
It’s touted as a Tex Mex restaurant, heavy on the water theme. To me, it was less Tex Mex and more American style with cheese dip. Tex Mex, while not strictly traditionally Mexican food (obviously) is still pretty generous on the seasonings. We got some cheese dip to share, and it was good. I mean, it’s pretty hard to mess up cheese dip.
My friend got some tacos, and I chose the burger, because I can always eat a burger. The Taco Trio will run you about $ 13, and includes flour tortillas with meat, sauce, and whatever other toppings happen to be on your taco. My friend let me eat one of hers, and it was just fine. Seasoned decently, with a tasty sauce. I got the regular Big Kahuna Burger, which has toppings like American cheese, sweet onions, tomato, lettuce, pickles, and their Big Kahuna sauce.
PROS:
–Friendly service.
–Cheese dip is delish.
CONS:
–Burgers aren’t cooked to order. You get well done, or nothin’ at all.
–Less of a Tex Mex type of place, and more like a fairly Americanized restaurant.
THE VERDICT:
It was a pretty standard burger, not cooked to order (so cooked well done, without a pink center). It was a large burger, and I was able to save half of it for later. As far as burgers go, it was just fine for what it was. I could get a much tastier burger, that’s cooked to order, at a myriad of places.

I was ambivalent after a couple initial visits. I will now actively avoid this place. The burgers are fine, if you don’t mind eating while yelling in an airplane hangar. Service this last visit was spotty, even though the place was sparsely populated.
I can’t find anything nice to say about the rice bowls. My «spicy basil thai» rice bowl included a mess of bell peppers are the primary vegetative flavor along with a single basil leaf. The sauce was «asian» flavored but it clashed with the yellow spanish rice it was served over. This was not fusion. This was a lazy attempt to combine stuff they already had in new and «interesting» ways.

Food: flavorful and a nice menu selection.
Service: efficient, but a bit hectic. Probably due to their location (fancy downtown area of Peachtree Center, which gets a huge lunch rush).
I did not feel that their price points were reasonable. $ 11 for 2 tacos with chips and salsa on the side (served in a tiny plastic dressing container) seemed high to me. While the menu said that their tacos were «California huge,» they didn’t deliver. I got 2 very average-​sized tacos in flour tortillas that were stale. They were smushed into metal taco-​holders to make the filling appear voluminous, but they just weren’t. If I can eat my tacos without losing any of the filling, there’s not enough filling.

We had a good experience. The food was good, the restaurant was clean, nicely set up, and our waiter was great!

Good food plus there is a coupon in Scout Mob.
We ordered the tacos. They were excellent. You choose your meat then you choose what topping you want. The Asian was fantastic. The sandwich/​burger is the same way.
They have happy hour 4 – 630 weekdays. They also validate parking if you park in Sun Trust deck.

I am amazed that this place gets three stars, must be the «hate to hurt anyone’s feelings factor».
I am only giving 2 stars because the bartenders are pretty and the big screen is really big with a top quality picture as the food is a negative number.
I live downtown, one block from this place, and once or twice a year I will get lazy, want to watch a game and be in cheap mode, the food courts will be closed (we actually have some tasty options downtown, the food courts are better than most of the restaurants, try Aviva by Kameel and GLC Café), and make the mistake of deciding that the ScoutMob for this place is a good idea.
I always think, maybe this place will be under new management or have hired a new cook, who knows, and I go there with the hope that it will be better.
I have had the burger a couple of times, one of the worst ever with horrible fries (how do you mess up a burger and the fries?)
Yesterday I got 3 tacos. I can eat anything, though I love quality food I have some seriously low standards (I should see a therapist) when I am really hungry. I ate the tacos but they were almost inedible, the tortillas, cold, and I had to check that they had not accidentally used cardboard or something that was not food as tortillas, not a joke. The fillings, I got three distinct styles and meats, all awful. The chips that came with the tacos, cold and a bit stale.
My review is based on 4 or 5 lifetime visits and after reading what I just wrote, even I am thinking, I must have a personal beef with this place. I promise you I do not. My bartender, though her service was below average (did not get the lemon I asked for and my water was only refilled long after the glass was empty and I looked sad), was pretty, and that is actually enough for me, no beef here, she got a 20% plus tip on the full tab, not the minus ScoutMob tab.
I promise you that I want places that are one block from me and have one giant sweet ass big screen TV with pretty bartenders to be good but I simply do not think a good cook could make food this bad if they tried.
If you are downtown and you are hungry, do not go here. If you are downtown and want to have a drink and watch the game on a really big, really nice, big screen TV, this is a good option.

My girlfriend and I went to Big Kahuna yesterday evening with the hope of a casual, fresh seafood dinner. It was about 6 PM on July 4^th, but surprisingly not that busy. We sat out on the porch where two or three other tables were seated.
Service was very slow despite the lack of customers. I wish I’d gotten our server’s name, but let’s just say he was doing his best impression of Pauly Shore, except even more ditzy. We each asked for a glass of water and I also ordered a Coke. Of course he didn’t «need» to write it down. He showed up 10 minutes later with two Cokes and one water. When my girlfriend pointed out that she didn’t order a Coke, he just mumbled «Oh» and went back and swapped one for a water.
My girlfriend ordered the cod, grilled. When our dinners finally came, she got something that was fried to a crisp. We pointed out to the runner that she ordered it grilled, not fried. They took it back and said they’d get it fixed right away. Not wanting to let my enchiladas get cold, I started eating. Her meal didn’t arrive until I was ¾ done with mine.
What she ordered was grilled cod. What she got was grilled tilapia. Not even close to cod. And it was poorly prepared at that. The meal was barely edible. Our server was MIA most of the time and when he finally did drop by he never once apologized for screwing up both of the things that my girlfriend ordered (her drink and her meal). Not to mention that they are selling tilapia and calling it cod.
Do not eat here.

Big Zero. Food was slow and improperly cooked, credit card machine broken.
Want to like it, will give another try. Just one more try.
Must be an off day.

I’ve had their catering, and love the food! The catering manager came into our office and brought a sample and the wraps (only available on the catering menu — boo!) are a hit with our large meetings. The food is fresh, flavorful and filling.
After the ice/​snowstorm, my fiancé and I had cabin fever and went to the College Football Hall of Fame, and came over here for a bite with a ScoutMob. I told him the food was good and we decided to try it out.
We got there at an odd time and the place was dead. There was one other big table besides us there eating, and we could tell they were tourists. Based on their décor, I’m not sure how much late night traffic they get; appears to be more daytime/​corporate lunch friendly, even with a full bar.
When they brought the samples to my office, I tried a little bit of everything, and this time tried the tacos: Santa Barbara with chicken and Korean with chicken. They were good, as to be expected. Fiancé got the Korean with pork, and a few others I can’t remember now. We also started with their guacamole, which was really fresh and good, but the portion size was really small. It’s not that much more to get that fabulous table-​side guac at Rosa Mexicano…
All in all, I’m glad I’ve checked this one off the list, but will probably order their catering. Good food, okay atmosphere, mediocre service.

Let me begin by saying that the concept and décor at Big Kahuna is very creative and nice… from the surf boards hanging at the bar to the silver surfer hanging from the ceiling on a surf board. That is where it begins and ends!
They get an A for the surf theme and décor…
Restaurant size… they get a C:
The tables are too close together, you can’t have a private conversation and there is barely enough space in between the tables for the wait staff to walk. They told us that they take reservations for groups of 20 but really don’t have the space to accommodate a party that size. Remedy… either remove some of the tables or move to a bigger location.
Being seated… they get an F:
Why have a sign at the door telling people to wait to be seated and then leave people standing there for almost 10 minutes. When the staff did finally acknowledge that we were standing there waiting to be seated nobody smiled or apologized for our wait. Remedy… let people seat themselves or hire a hostess just to stand there and greet people.
Food…they get a C:
While the food certainly was pretty good I expected a fresh jumbo shrimp platter… what I received instead was medium size frozen shrimp on a bed of arugula with pineapple salsa for $ 24.99. Remedy… serve fresh shrimp and make sure they are actually jumbo size like your menu claims. Nobody wants to pay $ 24.99 for shrimp that you pulled out the freezer… their hush puppies were delicious. SEE PICTURE OF WHAT WE PAID $ 24.99 FOR!!!
Restaurant staff… they get a C
Restaurant staff is overworked… tables are left too long without being cleared of the dirty dishes. Remedy… hire more waiters/​waitresses and hire a bus boy to keep the tables clean.
I SHOULD HAVE EATEN NEXT DOOR AT PACIFIC RIM BISTRO… I WILL NOT BE RETURNING TO BIG KAHUNA…

yelch.
Our server was so super nice.
The food was not great at all. The top of my bun was cold, the burger wasnt impressive, and they put SO MUCH red onion that the ONE bite i took gave me onion breath for two straight days — omg, that thing burnt through my gums! YUCK YUCK YUCK. it took a long while to get our food, so i wasnt interested in sending it back. our server forgot to ask how we would like our burgers cooked and there were areas in the inside of the burger where it was a bit too raw for me. I plucked out the onions and went on about my business.
music was TOO loud for a burger joint … i had to look around several times to make sure that there was no cheesy dance floor somewhere, cuz i swear we were inside a club.
some genius thought that cleaning the kitchen with 20 gallons of bleach would be a great idea while their customers are eating so that we can take a whiff of the nauseating odor while we eat our onion burgers.
all in all, the food was not good, the atmosphere was not impressive, but at least the service was very nice. even with a scoutmob, i dont think i will be coming back.

My co worker and I found this place by accident — yay for us!!!
First thing we were greeted as soon as we walked in and seated right away. The place was buzzing with energy and a great vibe.
The menu is eclectic — mostly Mexican inspired food, queso dip, quesadilla, street tacos, fajitas — but, they also have salads, sandwiches and burgers! There is a full bar and plenty of TVs with sports lol around. So far so good!
We ordered drinks and the chips and queso, the service is great! The waiter/​bartender was friendly and full of hustle! I love that!!! I decided to order the turkey burger Asian coast style, Van ordered street tacos with steak Korean style. The food was fresh, looked appetizing and despite the crowd it came out really fast! My burger was delicious! A juicy fat burger on a brioche bun with Asian slaw, cucumbers and a spicy sweet sauce that stung my lips like a kiss from a firecracker the fries were good too! Van said the tacos were perfect!
I was really impressed with the energy and passion of the wait staff — the host that sat us turned out to be the owner so I let him know how much we liked the food and our service — he was really friendly and offered us a shot! Wow! Thank you — we will be back!

No frills spot but got a good deal on Scoutmob. The burgers and fries were good. Waitstaff professional.

I’ve been here twice now. The first time was a few weeks ago, took family here after picking them up at the airport. First trip to Atlanta, so figured I’d take them somewhere fun downtown and hoped this would be the place. I guessed right. We spent a few hours here eating and drinking at the bar. I had the grilled shrimp tacos with chips and salsa, they had mixed quesadillas and my roommate had fish tacos. All of or food was delicious and our bartender was so much fun! Stockton serves up some killer cocktails and «trust me» shots. My father is usually a pretty picky guy, but he didn’t have a single complaint. So much fun!
That said, my friend happened to be off on a weeknight this week, so we decided to pop in for some cocktails and a bite. The place was much busier this time, but Stockton was keeping the bar running smoothly with perfection and served us up delicious drinks in barely any wait. Tried the 4 dip appetizer too this time and all the dips were delicious! After the crowd thinned out and they were getting ready to close, we ended up meeting the owner. Super nice guy! Was running his butt off all night helping out with the larger than anticipated crowd, which is always great to see!
Both times I’ve been are mid week, in the evening and I sat at the bar. Given the place is in midtown, I imagine they are more geared for weekday crowds ie. lunch, happy hour.
Also to note, if you valet right next-​door to them, they will validate, so don’t let parking issues deter you!

I recently went to Atlanta for a conference and was looking for a quick bite after a long day of talking to clients. Luckily, Big Kahuna was near my hotel, and I stopped by to have dinner… and, guess what? I had a great time. All of the selections I tried were right on… from my appetizer (chips and salsa) to my entrée (trio of tacos)… and the drinks were all tasty and reasonably priced as well.
The chips and salsa app came with 2 different salsas (traditional tomato-​based salsa and salsa verde)… and, although both were good, the verde was above average and yummy! I also recommend the taco meals. You can get either an order of 2 or 3 and can mix and match your protein choice with several «styles» of toppings (e.g., the Wahoo, which features fresh cabbage, cilantro tartar sauce, and pico and the Tijuana Street Taco, which features avocado verde, pico, cilantro, and lime). I ordered one fish taco, one steak taco, and one chicken taco and choose different topping styles for each. All combinations I tried were super tasty, and I suspect you can’t go wrong with any of them!
As for atmosphere, the place is super clean but a little institutional looking for my taste (I prefer warmer, darker atmospheres over light, cheery, institutional ones); however, the service was amazing (the bartender Candy is really awesome)! So would I return to Big Kahuna? You bet! I’d definitely go back any time and would recommend it to anyone staying in the area!

I came here on the recommendation of the concierge at the Marriott Marquis. I sat at the bar, where there was only one other person sitting. It took me quite a while to have my order taken (although she was very nice). I thought I would start with a Captain & Coke. The bartender asked me if that was rum!!! Then went to check with someone in the back and came back to tell me they were all out of rum.
I’m not a big beer drinker, but the sign out on the sidewalk advertised a special on Yeungling today, so I thought I would order it. Guess what — they’re out of that as well.
I finally settled on a Mr. Pibb…
To eat I ordered a cheeseburger, plain, as this is specifically what the hotel recommended this place for. The appearance of the tray was pretty cool. However, even though I was very sure I specified a plain burger, and the bartender said «not even lettuce or tomato», my burger arrived with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles and some ‘special sauce’. After removing what I could — I was VERY IMPRESSED with the actual burger. It was a great size, FULL of great flavor, very juicy. The cheese was perfectly melted and the roll tasted so fresh. And there were enough fries for an army.
So a «D» for service from me, but an «A» for the food. Even with low expectations I’d probably return for another burger like this.

The new Ahi tuna plate is fabulousness. It’s called Big Tuna and is a mere 11.99!
Seared ahi served with a wasabi mayo and lemon Ponzu sauce.
Under the seared sesame crusted tuna is a little citrus cucumber salad that add texture and is very tasty!
They also have killer options like Mahi Mahi, Grilled Churrasco Steak, Wild Salmon, and the oh so amazing Crab and Shrimp Kahuna Mac & Cheese.
I also tried the rice bowls which are a new feature to the menu. At a tiny price of 8.99 I find myself eating these for a quick lunch. You can pick any protein from seared tuna to grilled steak-​gulf shrimp to wild salmon or blackened chicken. They have a ‘Chefs bowl’ option which changes weekly and have ingredients that are based on the chefs whim.
I’m dying to try the Sirloin Filet which has rave reviews from employees but I always fill up on Hummumole and cheese dip.
THIS PLACE IS THE SHIT. Go eat, drink and enjoy. I find myself here once or twice a week, and I feel no great shame.
I’ve always been a huge fan of this place, especially the bar and it seems that no one has really caught the fever along with me.