If you fly through Honolulu, Lihue, or Kahului over the next year, some of the airport food is going to start looking a lot more appropriate, or at least familiar. Alan Wong, MW Restaurant, Koloa Rum Company, Maui Brewing and Ocean Organic Farm & Distillery are among the Hawaii names now attached to new airport restaurants, bars and grab-and-go concepts scheduled to open through the end of 2027.
Seeing those names on airport signs might give you the impression that a group of independent Hawaii businesses is moving into the terminals, but that’s not how this works. HMSHost, part of global travel-retail company Avolta, remains the long-term food and beverage concessionaire working with the state and will operate all of the new concepts through partnerships with the chefs and brands whose names travelers will soon see.
That puts a different frame around this week’s announcement. Hawaii airport food is getting a substantial refresh, but the company behind the counters is largely the same one travelers have been dealing with for years.
Local names are coming through a global airport operator.
HMSHost operates more than 1,000 food and beverage locations at nearly 80 North American airports. Its parent, Avolta, is far larger, with operations in more than 70 countries and over 5,000 retail and dining locations worldwide. The Avolta announcement itself describes HMSHost as HDOT’s existing partner, not any newly selected company arriving in Hawaii.
The Hawaii names attached to the new restaurants, however, are real ones. The announcements don’t explain the business arrangement behind each airport location, including who owns the individual operation, how the local name is licensed, what role the chef or brand retains in operations, or how revenues are divided.
That was part of the conversation earlier this year when we asked why Leonard’s Bakery could get close to Honolulu Airport but not inside it. Readers questioned why iconic independent Hawaii food businesses remained outside the terminal while lackluster airport concessions continued to run through a large mainland operator.
At the time, Alan Wong, MW Group, Aloha Plate and The Lei Stand were already among the names being floated for HNL. Seven months later, those projects have moved beyond “coming soon” talk far enough for HMSHost to identify specific concepts and terminals, although individual opening dates still haven’t been announced.
Here’s what travelers will actually get to experience.
Honolulu gets four of the newly announced concepts. Alan Wong’s and Aloha Plate are headed to Terminal 2, along with The Lei-Over, a sister concept to Honolulu’s The Lei Stand. “On the Fly” by MW Restaurant, from award-winning chefs Wade Ueoka and Michelle Karr-Ueoka, is planned for Terminal 1.
Lihue gets two. Wailua Falls Market will sell sandwiches, salads, fruit, juices and other grab-and-go items, while Koloa Rum Company Cocktail Room will feature the Kauai company’s rum in what HMSHost describes as the first airport concept of its kind in the small airport.
Kahului also gets two new names for now. The Tap House by Maui Brewing Co. will serve Maui Brewing beers, seltzers and cocktails, while Ocean Organic Farm & Distillery will open an airport location featuring cocktails and food tied to its own Maui operation.
Existing concessions won’t disappear. HMSHost says Stinger Rays and Lahaina Chicken will receive refreshed spaces, as will Burger King, California Pizza Kitchen and Dunkin’. Digital waitlists, QR ordering and payment, and self-order kiosks are also part of the changes. We can only hope these changes improve things.
The announcement leaves out how food and beverage costs will land.
Neither HMSHost nor owner Avolta says what any of this will cost to eat or drink for now. No menus or prices have been announced for Alan Wong’s, MW, Koloa Rum, or the other new concepts, and nothing in the material released this week indicates how much airport prices will rise because of the changes.
Price and quality have already been big parts of the HNL discussion. When we revisited the $300 million Mauka Concourse and its sparse food choices in 2024, one reader said they had stopped buying food in the terminal altogether and picked something up before arriving. Another questioned whether airport rents were part of the reason local restaurants weren’t moving in.
Our own experience there wasn’t much better. During that visit, Dunkin’ was closed, the restaurant choices didn’t appeal to us, and we ended up walking back toward the older Terminal 1 area for dismal fast food. By 6 p.m., only Starbucks and Burger King were still open there.
More recognizable Hawaii names address one part of that problem. They don’t answer whether travelers will find the food worth what they’re asked to pay.
Construction could be another part impacting visitors.
The rollout will stretch from now through the end of 2027, so these changes aren’t happening immediately. HMSHost hasn’t released a location-by-location construction schedule yet showing when individual restaurants close or open, how long renovations will take, or whether temporary concessions will be added while work is underway.
For now, though, there’s a way to tell Hawaii visitors what to expect in terms of major dining disruption. So far, the announcement only gives us the end date for the broader rollout.
Hawaii has long promised better airport food but hasn’t delivered.
Waialua Bar & Cafe shows that some of this effort is already real. It opened at HNL Terminal 1 in December 2025, when HDOT said it was the first of several new dining options being developed with HMSHost. Earlier that year, the same partnership opened Panda Express in Terminal 1 and announced another for Terminal 2.
What makes this week’s announcement somewhat more hopeful is the specificity. Instead of another general promise about “local flavors,” travelers now know that Alan Wong’s is planned for Terminal 2, MW is headed to Terminal 1, Koloa Rum is coming to LIH, and both Maui Brewing and Ocean Organic are part of the Maui Airport changes.
We’ve also heard enough airport promises over the years to reserve judgment until these places open, start serving food, and post prices. At that point, we’ll return and give you updates. A Hawaii name over the door could be a meaningful improvement, especially at airports where choices have been this thin, but what happens after that will determine whether travelers experience much more than a change of signs.
Would Alan Wong, MW Restaurant, Koloa Rum, or Maui Brewing change where you eat at the airport, or will the price and operating hours still decide it for you?
Photo Credit: © Beat of Hawaii at HNL.
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
Some of the most meaningful parts of Hawaii are the ones visitors walk right past without knowing they are there. We’ve spent nearly 20 years finding them firsthand for BOH as full-time Hawaii residents reporting on travel, culture, and island life, and telling you what they mean for your trip. Join us →
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Maui Brewing at OGG makes sense, and Koloa Rum at LIH makes sense. I like that each airport might finally have something connected to the island you’re actually on.
Why on earth has this taken so long? Hawaii should have had local plate lunches, malasadas, musubi and good local coffee in the airport decades ago as you have written about before.
I’m glad to see the local names, but I’m skeptical about what local really means when the same company is still running the show behind the scenes.
Koloa Rum at LIH actually actually sounds like a good fit. Imagine that. That’s more like what visitors should see at a Hawaii airport instead of the same chains they see everywhere else or some nondescript nothing like the airport has now.
Please give Lihue some decent choices. We’ve learned to eat before going to the airport because there just isn’t anything worthwhile there at all.
One of the biggest problem for us has always been the restaurant hours. It doesn’t matter how good they are if they are closed when you have an evening flight.
Maui Brewing in Kaanapali serves regrettable food with high prices.
One time when we ate there, the chef came out and introduced himself. I wanted to ask if he had considered maybe plumbing or real estate instead of cooking, lol.
I wish Kona Brewing was opening a restaurant in Maui instead. They have awesome food and beer.
Meanwhile, we typically eat at Stinger Ray’s. It’s pretty decent!
Okay so there’s some hope for this to be better than Dunkin (LOL), but I still don’t understand why the state is saddled with this concessionaire. Haven’t they already proven themselves?
Alan Wong and MW sound interesting, but the first thing I want to know is what lunch is going to cost given how expensive those are. Airport food in Honolulu is already expensive enough.
I’ll believe it when I see it. We’ve heard for years that better food is coming to HNL, and somehow I still end up at Starbucks or Burger King. Really frustrating!