Lee’s Tahitian

I wish I could give this establishment zero stars. It’s not worth your time or money. Poor serve. Poor quality. I hate everything about it.

This review is mainly for the bar. The most important thing to note, the drinks are good and stiff and will stay that way if you tip your bar tenders. They are working hard and do a damn fine job. The drinks average out to about 5 $ and they offer 1 $ Jell-​O shots.
Karaōke is fun and almost always a good time. They will be guaranteed to get crowded after 10:30 on the weekends, so come early for a seat.
If you enjoy people watching and dive bars, this is your kind of place. The crowd changes from week to week, but still has its regulars. The décor is retro tiki bar and it’s so fabulous I almost can’t stand it! Also as a side note, but important feature, their bathrooms have always been clean. Always.
Now, the food. Not that great. Keep in mind, when you’re drinking and having a good time, their bar menu does hit the spot for sure. I just wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here when I’m craving Chinese food.
So, tip well, come early or late depending on what kind of crowd you desire, eat off of the bar menu, and enjoy the kitschy dive bar mecca that is Lee’s Tahitian.

Food is cheap but little tasteless as well. I guess you get what you pay for. There is decent beer selection and staff is friendly. I had few drinks at the bar few times and it was quiet and laid back.

Bartenders are great the bouncer and owners are discriminating jerks and don’t serve disabled people with service dogs. I have a disability and have a service dog. She is licensed and registered and they said they refuse service to me because I have a service dog and kicked me out. By law my service dog is a loud in any public place. I called the owners to let then know and he had nothing to say to me not even oppoligize. I will take my business else where

My favorite dive bar in the tri-​cities… I wouldn’t recommend eating here though lol. Love all the bartenders! Great drinks and quick service. They also also have happy hour later than most places (during your typical dinner rush) and karaōke almost every night of the week.

This place is hit and miss depending on who is cooking. There are times I love it and other times I’m afraid to eat there due to the cleanliness of the place. It’s a historic restaurant in a historic location, I wish it were a better restaurant.

My husband and I have worked in the food industry for twenty plus years, and we have never felt so compelled to give a bad review to a restaurant as we are now for Lee’s Tahitian in Richland, Washington. We have actually eaten lunch there three other times… all three times on Sunday afternoons… and all three times we enjoyed our meals. It wasn’t until tonight when we ordered dinner to go that we realized something was very different in a very bad way. We ordered five or six dishes to take home… some the same as we had eaten previously… some new ones… but when we got home and opened up our dinner boxes, we could tell right off the bat just by looking at the food that it wasn’t cooked properly. The thing that stuck out the most was the oddly white color of the so called tempura batter on the fried prawns and almond chicken. Not only was the batter bland looking, but it was also extremely bland tasting as well. I don’t think there was even one single grain of salt in it, much less any other kind of seasoning. The next thing we noticed was the Mongolian beef… normally one of our favorite recipes. Unfortunately this time, even though it looked yummy, it tasted horrible… as we are fairly certain that the cook made it with some sort of odd tasting sweet and sour sauce! This obviously ruined the entire dish. As we continued to taste the other dishes, we took note of how bland and dry they all were… especially the barbequed pork and beef and broccoli. Nearly everything we bought was inedible, and we felt like we had wasted a much needed $ 50. So, I did what I thought I should do and called the restaurant to make a complaint and try to make sense of what was going on, as my husband the chef had thought maybe they had hired a new and inexperienced cook or something. We’d totally understand if that were the case of course, and we would also be happy to give him or her a second chance to redeem themselves. However… and this is what made the overall experience so bad… when I called to make the complaint, I was told by the manager called Jennifer that the person who had cooked our dinner tonight was the same cook they always had and that I must be mistaken, because the sauces and batter and everything else was the exact same as it had always been. I was also told that I would have to come back on Sunday afternoon to speak with the owner, whose name is Ming, if I wanted anything to be dine about the problem, because the current chef did not speak any English. I was naturally a bit offended by this person’s lackadaisical attitude and her quickness to blame the customer’s senses, but I quickly realized the issue after just a few seconds of listening that the reason for such a big difference between our previous Sunday afternoon lunches and tonight’s dinner was the simple fact that one person cooks six days of the week and the owner, Ming, cooks on Sundays! Just to be clear, the owner’s food is delicious, as we had experienced it three times already, but the other cook that’s there the rest of the week either can’t cook or doesn’t care how his food tastes… one of the two. My hubby and me will be paying a visit to Lee’s Tahitian this coming Sunday to speak with Ming the owner to let him know about our entire experience, and hopefully we will be getting a refund or a really good meal on the house. Whichever way things unfold, I’ll come back ro Unilocal to finish my review… hopefully to add more stars and a happy ending and not to advise others of poor quality food and service. We’ll have to wait and see I guess. Stay tuned for the ending review on Sunday, August 24^th 2014. Until then… happy eating and happy living to all!

I like it here. I just walked in after getting my hair cut to watch the rest if the Netherlands vs Costa Rica World Cup game. They graciously let me change the channel and the local day drinkers comically critiqued soccer. Drinks are poured heavy handed, staff is awesome, décor is hard to beat.

Stay away !!
I ordered Mongolian Beef entrée to take out. I got home, opened the box and it was filled with meat, hot freshly made. But when I served the first plate and started digging, the bottom half was filled with cold meat ! God knows how long this cooked meat was sitting in the fridge ! and the smell was bad !! I also found pieces of noodles mixed with the meat !! I stopped eating and threw everything away !
I cannot believe this place is allowed to serve food !

Stumbled into this place and thought I was going somewhere else. The amount of food you get for the price can’t be beat. The place was empty but made the service extremely quick. Was it the best Chinese food I’ve had, probably not. Did it fill me up, have great service and good prices, absolutely.

Gross and dirty. The bathroom is disgusting. The last (and now final) time we went there, the bartender made us re-​use our empty glasses for new cocktails and/​or beer. Disgusting.

Lee’s is one of those places that is just always a good time. How can you go wrong with stiff drinks, karaōke, pool and good music (when there’s no karaōke)? You can’t. This is a great place to start the night, or end the night… or stay the whole night! I have yet to actually go during the day for food, but I’m sure that’s good too. See you soon Lee’s.

Best karaōke in a 100 miles for sure. Get there early on Saturday nights if you want to sit. Love, Love this place.

It’s a dive, yes, but there’s something very sentimental about it. Whenever I visit town I like to come in and see the weekend regulars and enjoy my generously poured beverages. It’s always an experience.

I never thought my favorite bar would be located in the back room of Tahitian restaurant… However it’s cheap drinks made with an extra splash seem to keep me coming back for more.
It’s a great 2^nd or 3^rd bar– normally a good idea if you’re looking for a place to continue your night.
Order the fog cutter– the name says it all.

Sometimes you just need a dark place to have a drink or two. When I was in Philly, you could go two blocks in any direction and find one. In Richland? Well, not so much.
The restaurant side of this place looks pretty cozy, but I dropped in to hang with my sister in the back bar. And I was back in Philly, I swear. Cozy dark place, old 80’s music playing just loud enough to block others’ conversations.
But no where in Philadelphia did I find potstickers that tasted so good. And the first Rum and Coke I got… the rum could have easily been spread between three drinks, wow! Remember I was in the Navy once so I almost never accuse someone of using too MUCH rum.
Anyway, prices are good, and if you want to grab a drink or two in the afternoon and just quietly exist for a while, Lee’s will do you up right.

I spend every couple Saturday nights here. The drinks are strong and always taste good. The bartenders are kind if you tip generously. They’re not mid-​twenty scantily clad bartenders, either, so you don’t have to deal with the whole «I’m only serving women with large knockers» or «men with big wallets» mentality.
I’m only knocking it down a start because it’s super crowded and it can occasionally take a while to get a drink. The bar space itself is small so you can be crammed 6 people deep trying to order.
Seating is another problem. You’ve got by the door/​bar or over in the karaōke/​pool area. On busy nights, I’ve never seen the pool table get used so it’d be nice if they moved it to the other side of the building (in the non-​used restaurant at night) for those busy nights to get some sitting space.
Over all, I love this bar. It was my first bar when I turned 21. Where I had my first drink, my first alone bar outing, and first place I’ve sung karaōke.

This place will now hold a special place in my heart for being the joint where I sang my very first Karaōke song! I wanted to sing a little-​known song from the 80’s («Punk Rock Girl» by Dead Milkmen [
), and I didn’t think they’d have it. Most karaōke joints don’t. But this guy looked it up on his computer and, BOOM! it was on! VERY COOL!

People don’t go to lee’s for fancy food or fancy service. They go to lee’s to for their stiff drinks. And probably their awesome Karaōke.
They have the typical dive bar atmosphere, which I love. The staff is always fast, curteous and helpful. And for a bonus? They have an ATM located inside.
That’s fancy, if you ask me.

This tiny place manages to cram in a pool table, bar, and about 100 loud karaōke singers on Saturday nights. The drinks are stiff, which is good since they come in small glasses. But they’re also CHEAP — like $ 5 a drink for a tanqueray and tonic.
The crowd is pretty die hard for the karaōke, including my good friends who proceeded to sing a few songs apiece. There are very few people here over the age of 30. It seems to be mostly a 20 something crowd who all know each other and probably went to high school together.
I didn’t get a chance to order any food, but many peeps ordered from the chinese food type menu. The BBQ pork seemed popular.
All in all a fun dive bar.