A Hawaiian BBQ menu looks unfamiliar until you learn the one rule that governs almost every item on it: two scoops of white rice, one scoop of macaroni salad, one hot protein. That is the plate lunch, and it explains the entire menu. Here is every standard dish, what each one actually is, and what it costs in 2026.
Prices at a glance
Every price on this page, collected up front. Prices vary by location and change without notice — confirm locally before ordering for a group.
| Item | Typical price |
|---|---|
| Chicken plate (BBQ, katsu, teriyaki) | $11.99 – $13.49 |
| Beef plate (BBQ beef, kalua pork) | $12.49 – $13.99 |
| Kalbi short ribs plate | $15.49 – $17.99 |
| Two-protein combo plate | $13.49 – $15.49 |
| Mini meal | $9.99 – $11.49 |
| Musubi | $3.99 – $6.99 |
| Kids meal | $5.49 – $7.99 |
| Family meal (4–5 people) | $44.99 – $54.99 |
| Hawaiian BBQ | American BBQ | Korean BBQ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cooking method | Char-grilled or fried | Smoked low and slow | Grilled at the table |
| Starch included | Always (rice) | Never | Usually charged |
| Cold side included | Always (mac salad) | Never | Free banchan |
| Sauce | Glazed before serving | Applied at the table | In the marinade |
| Typical full meal | $12.49 | $11.97 – $14.99 | $24.99+ (AYCE) |
| Group | What to order | Approx. cost |
|---|---|---|
| 2 adults | 1 combo plate + 1 regular plate + 2 musubi | ~$40 |
| Family of 4 | 1 Family Meal | ~$47 |
| 6 adults | 1 Family Meal + 2 combo plates | ~$75 |
| 12+ | 2–3 Family Meals + extra rice and mac | ~$150–$170 |
What a Hawaiian plate lunch is
The plate lunch is not a barbecue plate in the mainland sense. It comes out of plantation-era Hawaii, where sugar and pineapple workers from Japan, China, Korea, Portugal and the Philippines ate from tin lunch pails in the fields. Rice provided bulk, macaroni salad provided something cold and creamy that survived the heat, and the protein was whatever was cooking.
That combination stuck, and it is now the default format at every Hawaiian barbecue restaurant on the mainland. The important consequence for pricing: your starch and your side are always included in the plate price. A $12.49 Hawaiian plate is a complete meal. A $12.49 order at an American barbecue chain is meat and a bun.
Every dish on a Hawaiian BBQ menu
Chicken
- Hawaiian BBQ Chicken — Boneless thigh, char-grilled, glazed in a sweet-savoury barbecue sauce. The signature dish of the entire category.
- Chicken Katsu — Panko-breaded, deep-fried, sliced, served with katsu sauce. Japanese in origin, Hawaiian by adoption. The best cold leftover on any menu here.
- Teriyaki Chicken — Thinner, sweeter, more soy-forward than the BBQ version.
- Garlic Chicken — Fried then tossed in garlic and soy. Underordered.
- Mochiko Chicken — Marinated in sweet rice flour batter. Sticky, crisp, very Hawaiian.
Beef and pork
- Kalbi Short Ribs — Korean-influenced, flanken-cut, soy-garlic-sesame marinade. The most expensive plate on almost every Hawaiian menu and usually the best.
- Kalua Pork — Pork shoulder salted and slow-cooked until it shreds. Traditionally cooked in an imu, an underground oven lined with hot rocks and banana leaves. Unsauced, salty, smoky.
- Loco Moco — A hamburger patty on rice, topped with a fried egg and brown gravy. The most Hawaiian thing on any menu and the least like barbecue.
- Hawaiian BBQ Beef — Thin-sliced beef in the house glaze.
Seafood and other
Crispy shrimp, island white fish, grilled mahi mahi, and Spam — which is not a joke. Hawaii consumes more Spam per capita than any US state, a direct legacy of WWII military rations, and grilled Spam with eggs is a legitimate breakfast plate.
Musubi
Spam musubi is a block of rice with a slice of grilled, teriyaki-glazed Spam on top, wrapped with a band of nori. It is the single most Hawaiian snack there is, it costs about $6.49, and it travels better than anything else on the menu.
Hawaiian BBQ prices in 2026
The Ono Hawaiian BBQ menu is the most useful reference point on the mainland — it is the largest chain in the category and its pricing sets the market.
Macaroni salad — why it matters
Hawaiian macaroni salad is not the same as mainland macaroni salad. It is deliberately simple: elbow macaroni overcooked slightly so it absorbs dressing, mayonnaise (a lot of it), grated carrot, a little onion, salt, pepper. No celery, no mustard, no relish, no vinegar bite.
The overcooking is the point — soft pasta soaks up mayonnaise and becomes creamy rather than dressed. If a mainland restaurant serves you al dente macaroni salad in a Hawaiian plate, they have missed the brief.
How Hawaiian BBQ compares to mainland barbecue
Per dollar, Hawaiian BBQ delivers the most complete meal of the three. It is also the least like actual barbecue — nothing is smoked, and most of it is cooked in under fifteen minutes.
What to order on a first visit
Order the BBQ chicken and katsu combo. It is on every Hawaiian menu under some name, it pairs the two defining preparations, and it usually costs about $14.49. Add a Spam musubi to take away — it is better an hour later than it is fresh.
If you want to spend more, kalbi short ribs. If you want to spend less, loco moco or a Spam and eggs plate. And do not skip the macaroni salad because it looks plain — it is doing more work than it appears to.
Loco moco, in defence of
Loco moco is white rice, a hamburger patty, a fried egg and brown gravy, and it looks on paper like something invented by accident. It was: the Lincoln Grill in Hilo put it together in 1949 for teenagers who wanted something cheap and filling that was not a sandwich.
It is now one of the defining dishes of Hawaii and it appears on almost every Hawaiian BBQ menu at $11 to $13. The construction matters — the yolk must be runny, and it is supposed to break into the gravy and the rice. If you order it and the egg is cooked through, the dish does not work.
Spam, seriously
Hawaii consumes more Spam per capita than any US state — roughly seven million cans a year. This is not a novelty; it is a direct consequence of the Second World War, when fresh meat was restricted and military rations were abundant. Spam became a pantry staple and then a genuine part of local cuisine.
On a Hawaiian BBQ menu it appears three ways:
- Spam musubi — Grilled, teriyaki-glazed, on a block of rice, wrapped with nori. Around $3.99–$6.99.
- Spam and eggs plate — The breakfast plate lunch. Usually the cheapest full plate on the menu.
- Spam fried rice — At some restaurants, as a rice upgrade.
The musubi is the one to try. It is portable, it is better an hour after it is made than it is fresh, and it costs less than a coffee.
Kalbi: the Korean influence
Kalbi short ribs on a Hawaiian menu are a direct import from Korean immigration to the islands, and they are usually the most expensive plate for a reason — flanken-cut short rib is an expensive cut and the marinade takes time.
The Hawaiian version is typically sweeter than the Korean original, with more pineapple or brown sugar in the marinade and less garlic. If you want the Korean reference point, the Korean BBQ menu guide covers galbi in detail — the same cut, a drier, more savoury treatment.
Ordering for a group
Hawaiian BBQ is one of the easiest cuisines to feed a group with, because the plate format means everyone gets a complete meal and nothing needs assembling.
The thing to over-order is rice and macaroni salad, not protein. Both are cheap ($2.99 and $4.49) and both are what people run out of.
Hawaiian BBQ and calories
The plate lunch is heavier than it looks, and the rice is doing most of it. Two scoops of white rice alone is around 400 calories before any protein.
| Component | Approx. calories |
|---|---|
| Two scoops white rice | ~400 |
| One scoop macaroni salad | ~300 |
| BBQ chicken portion | ~300 |
| Chicken katsu portion | ~450 |
| Kalbi portion | ~500 |
| Full BBQ chicken plate | ~1,000 |
| Full katsu plate | ~1,150 |
| Loco moco | ~1,100 |
The two useful adjustments: ask for one scoop of rice instead of two, and choose a grilled unsauced protein over a fried one. That combination takes roughly 350 calories off a plate without changing what makes it a plate lunch.
Where the mainland chains stand
Ono Hawaiian BBQ is the largest chain in the category and the price-setter, with roughly 90 restaurants concentrated in California. L&L Hawaiian Barbecue is larger by location count and more widely spread, with a broader menu that leans more heavily on Japanese and Chinese dishes. Smaller regional chains — Kahu, Niu, Mililani — follow the same format at similar prices.
The menus are close enough that price and proximity are the main differentiators. What varies most between them is the macaroni salad and whether the BBQ chicken is genuinely char-grilled or finished on a flat-top, which is worth noticing on a first visit.
The short version
A Hawaiian BBQ menu is one format repeated: rice, mac salad, protein. Order a two-protein combo, take the BBQ chicken and the katsu, add a Spam musubi, and do not push the macaroni salad to the side. Around $20 and it is one of the most complete meals in fast-casual dining.