Hawaiʻi Eats: the plate lunch, poke & shave ice guide for iPhone and iPad
Hawaii restaurants, from plate lunch counters to shave ice stands
Where Hawaii actually eats: a plate lunch with two scoops rice, shoyu ʻahi by the pound, a bowl of saimin, a musubi from the warmer, shave ice soaking up its syrup. Hawaiʻi Eats gathers 60 places we checked by hand into guides for those, and lets you search 3,898 restaurants, cafés, bars and bakeries across 79 towns on six islands. It's free.
- 60hand-checked picks
- 6James Beard honorees
- 3,898restaurants
- 79towns
Built around two scoops rice and a poke counter
Star ratings won't tell you which fish market makes the poke people line up for, or which saimin stand is still pouring broth. So Hawaiʻi Eats begins with what Hawaii goes looking for: plate lunch and drive-ins, poke, saimin, shave ice, malasadas, Hawaiian food and okazuya, musubi and loco moco. We read a 2025 or 2026 menu or news story for every place on those lists in October 2026. Hours, photos and ratings stay with Apple Maps, whose live card opens from any place.
How it works
Start with a craving.
Open Plate Lunch & Drive-Ins, Poke, Saimin, Shave Ice, Malasadas, Hawaiian Food, Musubi or Loco Moco, or type a name, town, island or dish to search the 3,898 places.
Narrow it to your road.
Let the nearest rise to the top, stick to one island, one town or one kind of food, or pan the map from Kauaʻi to Hawaiʻi Island.
Head out.
Pull up Apple Maps for today's hours and photos, ring ahead, get turn-by-turn directions, or tuck the place away for a later trip.
Hawaii food guides
Each guide in the app also has its own page here, with every place, its dishes and its source.
Hawaii plate lunch & drive-ins
19 hand-checked places.
Hawaii poke counters & fish markets
13 hand-checked places.
Hawaii saimin stands
7 hand-checked places.
Hawaii shave ice stands
5 hand-checked places.
Hawaii malasadas & bakeries
12 hand-checked places.
Hawaiian food & okazuya
10 hand-checked places.
Hawaii musubi shops
7 hand-checked places.
Hawaii loco moco
7 hand-checked places.
Lahaina restaurants open again
5 hand-checked places.
James Beard honorees
6 honored Hawaii restaurants.
Hawaii's oldest restaurants
4 places with a documented founding year.
Restaurant inspections
What Hawaii's green, yellow and red placards mean, and where to look one up.
Search every island
Look up 3,898 places to eat in 79 Hawaii towns, in your browser.
By town and island
From Līhuʻe to Hilo, each town page gathers the picks, honorees and old-timers in and around it, and each island has a page of its own. See what each page has.
- Honolulu
- Kailua-Kona
- Hilo
- Kīhei
- Kapolei
- ʻAiea
- Waipahu
- Kailua
- Kāneʻohe
- Kahului
- Līhuʻe
- Kapaʻa
- Wailuku
- Haleʻiwa
- Pearl City
- Kāʻanapali
- Waimea (Hawaiʻi Island)
- Kōloa
- Mililani
- Waikoloa
And by island:
No price tag, no sign-up
Hawaiʻi Eats costs nothing and shows no ads, and there's nothing to subscribe to or log in to. Every list is stored in the app itself, so it opens without a connection, which helps on the Hāna Highway or anywhere else out of cell range.
Nothing here keeps track of you
Your phone keeps your location and your saved places to itself: location, when you allow it, only reorders the lists by distance on the device. This website stores no cookies, and nothing on it tracks visits. Read the privacy policy.
Questions
Does Hawaii grade or score its restaurants?
Not with a letter or a number. The State Department of Health inspects every food business on every island and posts a color-coded placard: green, yellow or red. It publishes results one search at a time, not in bulk, so Hawaiʻi Eats has no inspection results to show; each place links DOH's food safety page, and our inspections page explains the three colors.
Does it cover every island?
Every inhabited one but Niʻihau: the 3,898 places reach 79 towns on Oʻahu, Maui, Hawaiʻi Island, Kauaʻi, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi.
What about Lahaina?
The Aug 8, 2023 fire destroyed most of the town. A Lahaina place is listed only when a 2025 or 2026 source shows it open again; Kāʻanapali, Nāpili and Kapalua share its mailing address and are listed under their own names.
How were the plate lunch, poke and shave ice lists checked?
By hand, in October 2026. Each of the 60 places on the Hawaii lists has a 2025 or 2026 source, usually its own menu or a dated local news story, and its street address was checked against it. James Beard honors come from the Foundation's own announcements. Everything else is Overture Maps' open place data.
What does Hawaiʻi Eats cost?
Not a cent. Hawaiʻi Eats carries no advertising, sells nothing inside the app and never asks you to sign up. The iPhone and iPad app hasn't reached the App Store yet, but the search on this site works today.
Where do ratings and hours come from?
From Apple Maps, live. Hawaiʻi Eats keeps no ratings or reviews of its own and never sorts a list by them; tap a place and Apple's place card shows its current hours, photos and ratings.
Is my location sent to you?
No. Sharing it is up to you, and all it does is bring the nearest places to the top. The app keeps it on your iPhone or iPad, and on this site Near me does its sorting inside your browser, so your whereabouts never reach us.
Spotted a closed or missing place?
Email nick@eatsranked.com with the restaurant's name and town, and the correction rides along with the next data update.
Plan the next stop
Hawaiʻi Eats for iPhone and iPad is headed for the App Store, free. Until then, ask for early access.