We have had too many meals lately where the best part of the food didn’t come from a restaurant. It came from a farmers market, a bakery, a seafood or poke counter, or a grocery store, while most expensive dinners out felt thinner than the bill suggested.
That has been true for us in Hawaii and, more recently, in Europe. It sounds painfully similar everywhere to what many Hawaii travelers are describing now. Then, a frequent Big Island visitor named Dolores just left a comment that put the whole pattern into a one-sentence perspective that resonated.
“We visit the Islands frequently. We love the Big Island. The locals are consistently friendly. Prices have surged, as they have on the mainland. The difference from years ago to now is that dining out is very expensive, and the quality has gone down. Very difficult to find a delish meal, no matter how much we pay. We prepare all our own meals to ensure freshness, delish, healthy food. I’d rather dine out half the nights, but we have yet to find really good food.” — Dolores, Beat of Hawaii comment.
Her comment resonated because it captured something more specific than sticker shock. Visitors accepted long ago that Hawaii vacations would cost more. What increasingly frustrates people is that it’s different: paying premium dinner prices and leaving feeling the meal itself did not in any way justify what they spent.
We are seeing the same thing ourselves as we travel around the state and around the world. By way of contrast, some of the best food we’ve had in France and Spain has come not from expensive restaurants but from bakeries, neighborhood restaurants, neighborhood food shops, and farmers’ markets. Meanwhile, restaurant prices everywhere have climbed, while the actual dining experience we have had has substantially declined. Here’s how Hawaii contrasts.
The same dining problem is showing up everywhere.
This is not a uniquely Hawaii problem. Restaurants across the US, Europe, and Hawaii are all operating under the same pressures at the same time. Restaurant labor has become dramatically more expensive. High-quality food products have simultaneously become far more costly. When both rise together, along with other expenses, restaurants feel the squeeze first because they depend on both skilled labor and those costly ingredients.
That pressure is reshaping the industry in visible ways. Breakfast and brunch restaurants continue to expand in Hawaii and in cities like Barcelona because the economics still work more comfortably there. Mid-tier and upscale dinner restaurants face far greater stress because food and labor costs, along with higher guest expectations, collide at once.
The result is a dining landscape where some restaurants can still deliver exceptional experiences while others increasingly leave diners wondering where the money actually went. And here, Hawaii is leading the way.
Breakfast still works because the economics still work.
A breakfast restaurant can charge $20 to $25 for eggs, pancakes, potatoes, coffee, toast, and fruit while still maintaining workable margins. Even after inflation, the core ingredients remain far more manageable compared with dinner.
The menus also mean the food moves faster, the staffing structure can be simpler, and customers often still feel satisfied once the plate and the tab arrive. That helps explain why breakfast lines remain packed in many Hawaii destinations while some expensive dinner rooms feel far less certain than they once did. And we’re finding the same is just as true elsewhere.
Visitors still want to dine out during their Hawaii vacations. The issue is that dinner now carries much higher expectations because the price point has moved up so dramatically.
Dinner is where the pressure becomes most obvious.
Dinner out is where the cost structure becomes much more impossible to disguise. A restaurant serving fresh island fish, premium proteins, alcohol service, full staffing, skilled kitchen labor, and higher-end ingredients starts from a much more difficult position before the guest even sits down.
A breakfast restaurant may build a plate around eggs costing a fraction of the menu price. A dinner restaurant plating fresh fish for one diner may already be starting with $25 or more of food cost before paying cooks, servers, rent, utilities, insurance, taxes, and supplier bills.
That math is also why, in reflection, our recent review of Mama’s Fish House on Maui landed where it did. Many visitors see the bill and call it outrageous, but the food product is excellent and expensive, the labor is highly skilled, and the experience is remarkably consistent. When all of that is true, even their high prices can still feel defensible.
The same principle applies, albeit differently, at places like Okim’s and Giovedi’s, and the Pig and the Lady, where owner involvement, tighter operations, and a more focused scale still allow restaurants to deliver meals that leave people genuinely excited. Those restaurants prove that the point is not that Hawaii dining became universally bad or universally overpriced. That isn’t the case.
The real pressure appears to be concentrated in expensive dinners that no longer consistently deliver high-quality food, service, or atmosphere. That distinction keeps surfacing in reader comments, and we find it to be true ourselves, in Hawaii and outside Hawaii. Travelers are not necessarily asking for cheap meals. They are reacting to meals that feel ordinary after paying extraordinary bills.
Hawaii simply reveals the global problem sooner and more visibly.
Hawaii did not create this restaurant squeeze. Hawaii simply reveals it sooner because nearly every structural cost already runs higher here than in most places visitors compare it against.
Food costs are higher; we feel it as residents and visitors do too. Shipping costs are hugely more. Labor costs are higher and availability is less. Rent, utilities, insurance, repairs, and transportation all run much higher, too. Visitors also arrive in Hawaii restaurants after already absorbing excessively high airfares, lodging, parking, rental cars, resort fees, and Hawaii’s accommodation tax.
That is partly why visitors cutting back on the dinner that used to be automatic resonated so strongly with BOH readers. The issue is not a single disappointing meal or a Maui steakhouse’s closure. It is the growing feeling among repeat visitors that the expensive Hawaii dinner is no longer automatically included among the highlights of a Hawaii vacation. Except maybe for the bill.
Condo and vacation rental travelers easily work around that by cooking more meals themselves using Costco, grocery stores, farmers’ markets, or takeout. Hotel visitors usually have fewer options. That said, most Hawaii hotels have refrigerators, and many have kitchenettes or a microwave.
Visitors say the Hawaii dining experience itself changed.
Dolores’s comment resonated because she isn’t angry at Hawaii at all. She praised the friendliness she still experiences on the Big Island. Her frustration centered on the dining experience itself. She said dining out was “very expensive, but quality is down” and that she and her companions had “yet to find really good food.”
That recognition now appears repeatedly in comments from longtime Hawaii travelers who remember when dinner itself felt more central to the trip to Hawaii than it does today.
The real question is whether visitors on recent trips to Hawaii still feel the dining experience delivered what they paid for, or whether something fundamental about Hawaii dining has changed.
Has the dining on your recent Hawaii trips lived up to the price, or does the experience itself feel different now?
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We live in Hilo, and rarely eat out. Restaurants are very expensive, loud, crowded, and the food is usually just OK. You have to have a reservation these days, even for lunch. I can cook, it is less expensive, less crowded, less noisy, more comfortable, and my food is better, according to my husband. When we do venture out, we prefer a couple of local food trucks. Then we can eat looking out at the water, or enjoying good Mexican food. Outside, no reservation needed.
We agree, except that breakfast on the Kauai north shore is not good. On this past Sunday, we went to three restaurants looking for a classic breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and pancakes. Nobody was serving that. Instead, it was pre-constructed (and very unappealing) breakfast sandwiches, overnight oats, yogurt parfaits, and pastry.
As previously noted, there are huge restaurant suppliers like Sysco and U.S. Food. These conglomerates sell both premade meals, as well as their own branded products like fries, beef, sauces, shrimp, dressings, and more (the “Sysco Brand Family”).
When you pay for an expensive meal, it’s highly likely this is what you are buying: something premade, frozen, and heated in a microwave. And likely procured from big food’s cheapified version of Kirkland (Costco’s brand) or Great Value (Wal*Mart’s brand).
Eat out enough, you’ll start to see identical products. Especially with pasta dishes (very easy to freeze and reheat), fries, shrimp and fish (too expensive for local fresh), and many, many deserts (restaurants cannot afford full/part time bakers and pastry chefs). It’s why so many pasta dishes now are terrible, and many deserts are dry, stale, and wretched.
This went into overdrive during the pandemic. It’s a permanent change. Eating out is a hard pass from us.
I just returned from Maui. I travel there annually for a month. I find the food delicious, except the fish the resort where I stay makes. The prices are high but the groceries are also expensive. I can’t cook fish to taste as good as the stuff I eat from their restaurants. To save money and calories, I usually eat half my meal and take the rest back to resort for another meal. Paia Fish Market, Maui Fish Market, Captain Jacks, Mala Tavern, Leilani’s, Hula Grill, Coconuts all serve food I love.
My wife and I were frequent visitors to Hawaii since the 1980s before finally moving to Oahu in 2010. Dining out and trying new restaurants used to be fun. Now it is mostly disappointing. There are still a few spots we enjoy, primarily for the food, but we do most of our own cooking. And there have been so many times we try a new place, only to feel like we overpaid for something we could do better ourselves. I understand everything is expensive, it has just taken the fun out of trying new spots.
We are not “foodies” but enjoy a nice meal out. We have been regulars at Café Pesto in Hilo for many years, and the staff know us. Have things changed? A little. There used to be warm bread served while waiting for the main meal; that disappeared after Covid. The prices have gone up, but not outrageously. Still, the most recent lunch for 3 — 2 vegetarian dishes and one pasta dish, no alcoholic drinks — just under $100 including tip. The food was freshly made with local ingredients such as Hamakua mushrooms, Kawamata tomatoes, Kaunamano Farms pork and Island beef, Kai Cuisine fresh shell pasta, etc. You can imagine what the bill would be with appetizers and a glass of wine or a cocktail (I recommend the lilikoi drop martini), plus dessert, which we sometimes do. It’s not elaborate or pretentious, a very welcoming atmosphere, an authentic gem in old Hilo. We find it worth our time and money. You can find such gems if you step outside the resort area.
When you go to a place that lavishes over shave ice at 5-8 dollars a serving. Example 3 packs of Koolaid, 3 cups of sugar for syrup and shaved frozen water. Which costs pennies to make. What then tells the story of how good Hawaii restaurants are? How wonderful is it really to have a cup of rice, a scoop of mayonaise macaroni and a grilled chicken portion with Yoshita’s gourmet sauce brushed on top. Carbs, Starch, and a small amount of protein. Same thing. Made for under a dollar and sold for 15 bucks. Hawaiian plates how wonderful. Now you know why upper restaurants don’t have to be that great. Because they really don’t have to. Added spices and work means less profits.
Anissue not addressed in your article is service. In the past, younger people with restaurant experience could afford to come to one of the islands to relax, surf, and/or explore for a few months or more and get a part time job at restaurants and bars on island. That affordability is no longer present. The vagabound waiter, waitress, bar tender with experience are not available. This means that the staff has to come from local residents. This requires training, a sustainable salary and other incentives to get quality help. It seems that most young people today have no incentive to work in the hospitality service industry and with the demographics of Hawaii households changing, they don’t have to. It is very difficult for me to go to a restaurant where the service staff have never had the experience of eating at better restaurant, may not have even eaten at the table with their family and don’t have the training to take an order, serve a meal and provide good service.
IMO on Oahu KFC even was bland. No spices no flavor. I think the mentality or focus of the deal is if this tourist dislikes our food there is another one to replace them by so who cares. I remember a breakfast place above Denny’s that undercut Denny’s prices and claimed had better food and value. Well they were right and I ate there almost every morning. Competition brings in quality and without competition they just don’t care. Unfortunately that restaurant is gone. With outrageous amounts of tourist’s who needs quality tasting food Right. You don’t pay for quality you seem to pay for convenience in Hawaii.
My 3 cents on this topic … as a boomer having grown up in the islands who is a serious Foodie living in Kona … I have watched over the past couple decades how most restaurants have slowly reduced their quality to … just being good enough for most tourists.
Add the long lockdown, inflation and gas prices … restaurant prices obscene. So I can’t afford to eat out anymore, even if in hopes of scoring a great dish … as most of it is just crappy tourist-industry fare.
I visited Hawaii the month of March for the last time. Sadly I have watched The Experience deteriorate over a period of 35 years. And to add insult to injury about the high cost of dining out many places in Hawaii that had small kitchens, little cooking Nooks are all being erased. In 2025 I visited Honolulu for 2 weeks the cost was about $2,000 shared. The same room same Hotel same time, this year was over $3,000 shared equally. Heartbreaking to say goodbye
About 15 years ago, we invested in Marriott’s Vacation Club and initially we thought we overpaid for the timeshare because we can definitely rent cheaper elsewhere. But the initial selling points which seemed like just that, have become more and more advantageous as having a unit with a beautifully maintained kitchen and lovely dining room, now affords us the option to save money at eat healthier by heading to Foodland or one of the local fish markets and preparing our own meals. In addition, with the timeshare, we I always know what we’re going to get each and every time we stay at any of the Vacation Club resorts and the amenities have always been 5 star. Plus no hotel gouging with parking fees! And while we were initially doubtful of the value of our investment, as the economy has tanked and prices have skyrocketed, our maintenance fees don’t seem so bad now because our room costs have remained consistent for the 5 star quality over the 15 years.
This is the Exact reason why I will ONLY book places to stay that have full kitchens and a Washer and Dryer. Not only can I prepare my own meals but I can also do my own laundry which means I can simply bring a Carry On instead of checking luggage. That alone saves me not only $100 in bag fees but the valuable time I waste waiting for my luggage in Hawaii and when I land back home. Speaking of which, my return flights are always red eye flights and the worst feeling is getting home at 6:00 AM and having to wait an hour for my bags to arrive.
Furthermore, most places will have BBQ grills as well so you can make all sorts of delicious meals and save money. Plus you know exactly what is going in your food. This has become the standard for me. I simply cannot go back to staying at places with these vital amenities.
We stick to our favorites on Maui; Okazuya and Fish Market Maui. We were one and done as far as Mama’s goes. Service was lacking and not personal. It’s hard to justify spending the money when your husband is a great cook.
Yes, it has affected our behavior. This last trip to Kauai, we had such sticker shock at places that charged $50 to $60 for mediocre fish or steak, that we purposely look for restaurants offerong the ‘lower” $30/entree.
We also cooked or grilled half of our meals – never used to do that on previous trips.
When my husband and I travel, we like to live, as best we can, like ‘locals’. When we first starting going to Honolulu back in 2007, we bought into a condo with a fully equipped kitchen. We always stay at the Ala Moana end of Waikiki and we typically eat our breakfasts in the condo. We used to rent a car every trip and would go to some of the nice grocery stores and to Costco. Even used Lyft for Costco. But we don’t a car anymore and The Food Pantry at Eaton Square on Hobron Lane is wonderful. So we make our breakfasts in the condo. We tend to eat lunches out and for dinner, we buy take-out meals. These meals have large portions, so we save the leftover, and then maybe supplement them with a protein from the Food Pantry. We’ll still eat out at dinner once in a while, but for the most part, our habits are healthier and cost a lot less.
We’ve been eating lunch out, at places such as Gaylord’s Plantation House in Kauai, to keep costs down and still have the pleasure of a nice meal out at a nice restaurant. Then we eat a smaller meal at dinner in our condo. The price os several diners out is getting prohivitive.
I like the term “Sysco slop” to describe what many restaurants have shifted to.
For those not aware, Sysco is the largest restaurant supplier for the US. They have a deep catalog, and just because a restaurant is using Sysco doesn’t mean they don’t have high quality, as there are very good products available from Sysco. If you find the gem of a restaurant with a proud owner, they keep the quality up.
The issue is the fact that Sysco has a lot of available pre-prepared food items. They’re just reheat and serve. They’re cheap to purchase, and they’re cheap to prepare and serve. Well not necessarily “cheap” with the price increases, but less by a good margin. What happens is the pricing pressures lead restaurants to pick those catalog items. What used to be a meal made with fresh, raw ingredients in the back is now just a bunch of those reheat items. Which are the same reheat items you can find at the next place down the road.
When we visit the Hawaii, for us, 2 of the must eat places are Mama’s Fish House and Merriman’s on Maui. Prices are rather high, but the food and experience and views make it well worth the price. We have also started eating at food trucks more often as the food is always fresh and delicious. Dining out on the mainland is expensive as well. We stay where there is a full kitchen and cook breakfast, but we cannot replicate the taste of Hawaiian cooking.
We literally just returned from the Big Island and we absolutely noticed the same thing. We take out speakers from our conference to dinner every night and spend $500-$700. Dinner at Canoe House was very disappointing both in timing of service and the food. Brown’s was only okay. Roy’s food was so salty it wasn’t edible and dinner at Pueo’s was a 3 hour affair because the server didn’t put the food order in and wasn’t attentive at all. That basically sums up our experience for the week. Would rather go to Seafood Bar or AJ’s but our speakers expect fancier. Not sure what we will do when we return in December.
Wow … (I live Kona but can only afford those places occasionally that have been stellar) and so shocked to hear this. Thank you! … What about Four Seasons Hualalai? Or Merriman’s in Waimea? … Good Luck!
Because the food and the dining experience were “over the top”, we enjoyed dinner at Sale Pape, in Lahaina three times during our two week stay on Maui.
We had waited several years for their reopening after the tragic wildfires.
It is not an inexpensive venue, however everything is authentic Italian. They import as many ingredients as possible.
Fresh pastas that melt in your mouth. You get what you pay for!
Your name is on the table when you arrive. The wait staff answer all your questions.
You leave satisfied!
Our resort charged 37 dollars for breakfast.Thats 74 dollars times ten days for the both of us….. just crazy !
For many years, we rented a marvelous house on a cliff overlooking the Kona coast, a little south of Kona Paradise. One of our favorite things was to watch the sunrise at South Point, then have breakfast at Hana Hau in Naalehu. Since Covid, Hana Hau has stopped serving breakfast. Then….the Mexican Restaurant that used to be Señor Billy’s is a joke – pick up “to go” boxes at the counter, then eat the (not very good) food at the tables. And it would be dishonest not to mention that “our” fabulous rental house disappeared; the owners had the nerve to move into it and it’s no longer a rental. Any house of similar quality is way out of our financial league in this new pricing “for the rich.” Last winter we rented a house in Kona Paradise which was okay, I guess, but no comparison to “our” old house. So I concur with what others have said here, as to why our Hawaii days are over. Sigh.
Last year we stayed at Aulani for a wedding. We had a wonderful meal at Noe in the Four Seasons. Everything was good: the service was perfect, the food delicious and the ambiance was just right. The next night we ate at Aulani’s premium restaurant, Ama Ama. The courses were ok but our entre was almost inedible. Granted, this is a Disney property and it was crowded, the ambiance was noisy and there was an unpleasant cooking smell. the cost was comparable to Noe. We spend our 3rd night back at Noe for another memorable meal. Although we don’t generally stay in Ko Olina, we have all wondered about driving there to eat when we stay on Oahu. It’s a gamble as to whether your expensive meal will be worth it. When you are at a hotel you are kind of stuck. I would love to trust a review site for restaurants.