BABALU - Knoxville

Stopped to get out of the rain and we were pleasantly surprised by the delicious food

All the food is amazing. Get the Cuban tho. Trust me. We normally sit at the bar. They seem to always been in the weeds. It causes the service at the bar to be lacking.

Babalu is suffering from a lack of help. We walked in and there where several tables open but we were told that the only place open was a the bar. They were out of some of thing on the menu.

Ordered a dozen oysters today and they didn’t have cocktail sauce or horseradish for my order! The bartender was having, “issues” so she was nowhere to be found. Her backup had no idea which happy hour cocktails were featured! If their mission statement is to aggravate and annoy their customers then, my experience was 10 out of 10. I live downtown, one block from this establishment and I’ll never return! #disgusting

My wife, a friend, and I went for the Oyster Thursday special, half price oysters and $5 martinis. We seated ourselves at the bar. A guy behind the bar asked us if we would like to order a drink. When my wife requested a martini, he said it would be a bit because "the bartender is having issues." I suggested to my party that we leave, but my friend wanted to try the oysters, so he ordered one dozen. When the oysters were brought no sauce was served with them. He then requested horseradish and cocktail sauce, and was told "we don't have horseradish." He then requested some cocktail sauce. After about ten minutes the guy returned with hot sauce, but no cocktail sauce. Who serves oysters on the half shell with no horseradish or cocktail sauce? Moreover, the oysters were the size of a nickel. My friend told him to take the oysters back and that he would not pay for them. No wonder they have 2.5 stars on TripAdvisor and 3.5 on Yelp. The Google reviews are bogus. They agreed to comp the oysters and we left. We all live downtown within walking distance. We will not return to Babalu.