The Ono Hawaiian BBQ menu is organised around one format that almost every item follows: the plate lunch. Two scoops of white rice, one scoop of macaroni salad, and a protein — that is the whole architecture, and once you understand it the entire menu becomes easy to read. This page lists every Ono Hawaiian BBQ item with its current price, explains what the mini meal and Aloha Plate tiers actually change, and works out which combination gives you the most food for the money.
Ono Hawaiian BBQ prices at a glance
Every price quoted in this guide, collected up front. Prices vary by location and change without notice.
| Tier | Rice | Mac salad | Protein | Typical price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini Meal | 1 scoop | 1 scoop | Smaller portion | $10.49 – $10.99 |
| Regular Plate | 2 scoops | 1 scoop | Full portion | $12.49 – $16.49 |
| Island Favorites (combo) | 2 scoops | 1 scoop | Two proteins | $13.99 – $14.99 |
| Combo | Price | What's on it |
|---|---|---|
| Hawaiian BBQ Mix | $14.99 | BBQ chicken, BBQ beef and kalbi |
| BBQ & Katsu Mix | $14.49 | BBQ chicken and chicken katsu |
| Seafood Mix | $14.49 | Shrimp and white fish |
| Chicken Combo | $13.99 | Two chicken preparations |
| Chicken & Beef Combo | $13.99 | BBQ chicken and BBQ beef |
| Kalua Combo | $13.99 | Kalua pork plus a second protein |
| Shrimp & BBQ Chicken | $13.99 | |
| Island White Fish & BBQ Chicken | $13.99 | |
| Shrimp & Island White Fish | $13.99 | |
| Grilled Spam & Eggs | $11.49 | The breakfast plate |
| Ono Hawaiian BBQ | City BBQ | Mission BBQ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plate with sides | $12.49 | $11.97 | $11.89 |
| Premium plate | $16.49 (Kalbi) | $15.57 (Half chicken) | $14.00 (Half rack) |
| Two-protein plate | $13.99 | $21.57 | $13.69 |
| Kids meal | $5.49 | $7.19 | $8.49 |
| Rice/starch included? | Yes, always | No | No |
| Situation | Order | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| First visit | Hawaiian BBQ Mix | $14.99 |
| Best value | Any Island Favorites combo | $13.99 |
| Best single item | Kalbi Short Ribs | $16.49 |
| Cheapest full plate | Grilled Spam & Eggs | $11.49 |
| Feeding children | Chicken Katsu + Keiki Meal | $12.49 + $5.49 |
| Feeding four | Family Meal | $46.99 |
| Eating lighter | Any Mini Meal | $10.49–$10.99 |
| Taking food away | Chicken Katsu + Spam Musubi | $12.49 + $6.49 |
How the plate lunch works
A Hawaiian plate lunch is not a barbecue plate in the mainland sense. It is a fixed three-part format that came out of plantation-era Hawaii, where field workers carried tin lunch pails: rice for bulk, macaroni salad for something cold and creamy, and one hot protein. Ono Hawaiian BBQ sells that format at three portion sizes.
Here is the part most people miss: an Island Favorites combo at $13.99 gives you two proteins for $1.50 more than a single-protein plate at $12.49. Per gram of meat, the combos are the best value on the entire menu, and it is not close.
Chicken plates
Five chicken plates, all priced identically at $12.49. The pricing being flat means you should choose on taste alone.
- Hawaiian BBQ Chicken — Boneless thigh, char-grilled, glazed in the house barbecue sauce. This is the signature and the single most-ordered item in the chain.
- Chicken Katsu — Panko-breaded and fried, served sliced with katsu sauce. The most popular order with children and the best cold leftover on the menu.
- Teriyaki Chicken — Sweeter and thinner-sauced than the BBQ chicken.
- Island Fire Chicken — The spicy option. Genuinely warm, not aggressive.
- Grilled Chicken Breast — Unsauced white meat. The leanest plate on the board.
Beef, pork and Kalbi
The beef side of the menu is where the price ladder actually moves.
Kalbi Short Ribs at $16.49 are the most expensive plate on the menu, and the one worth the money if you are only visiting once. Korean-style flanken-cut short ribs, marinated in soy, sugar, garlic and sesame, then grilled hard. They are the item most likely to convince someone that a fast-casual Hawaiian chain can actually cook.
Kalua Pork with Cabbage ($12.99) is the most traditionally Hawaiian thing on the board — pork shoulder salted and slow-cooked until it shreds, served with steamed cabbage. It is closer to a Southern pulled pork than most people expect, without the sauce.
Hawaiian BBQ Beef ($12.99) is thin-sliced beef in the same glaze as the BBQ chicken.
Island Favorites — the combo plates
This section is the value engine of the menu. Ten combinations, all between $11.49 and $14.99, each pairing two proteins on a single plate.
The Hawaiian BBQ Mix at $14.99 is the flagship — three proteins including the kalbi, for two dollars less than a kalbi plate on its own. If you want to understand the whole menu in one order, this is it.
Mini Meals
Six mini meals at $10.49 to $10.99. One scoop of rice instead of two, one scoop of mac, and a reduced protein portion. The saving over a full plate is about two dollars.
Honest assessment: the mini meal is the right order if you genuinely eat light, and the wrong order if you are trying to save money. Two dollars off for roughly a third less food is not good value. The combos are better value; the mini meals are a portion-control tool.
Musubi, appetizers and sides
The musubi are the most underrated part of the Ono Hawaiian BBQ menu — a block of rice with a protein on top, wrapped in nori.
- Spam Musubi ($6.49) — The classic. Grilled Spam, teriyaki glaze, rice, nori.
- BBQ Chicken Musubi ($6.49) / BBQ Beef Musubi ($6.49) — The chain's own variations.
- Crispy Shrimp ($8.49) — As an appetizer rather than a plate.
- Crab Rangoon ($4.49) — Not remotely Hawaiian, and consistently ordered anyway.
- Steamed Rice ($2.99) / Macaroni Salad ($4.49) — Sold on their own.
Family meals and feeding a group
The Family Meal starts at $46.99 and is built to feed four to five people: multiple proteins, a large rice, and a large macaroni salad. Against ordering four regular plates at $12.49 each ($49.96), the family meal is marginally cheaper and gives you more variety.
For larger groups the arithmetic is straightforward — plan on one plate per adult. Hawaiian plate lunches are dense; the two scoops of rice do most of the filling, and portions that look modest on the tray are heavier than they appear.
Ono Hawaiian BBQ prices vs mainland barbecue
The comparison that matters: at Ono Hawaiian BBQ your starch and your cold side are always included in the plate price. At mainland barbecue chains they are not. A $12.49 plate here is a complete meal; a $12.49 order at most barbecue chains is meat and a bun.
The Keiki Meal at $5.49 is also the cheapest kids' meal of any chain on this site by a wide margin.
What to order
First visit: Hawaiian BBQ Mix ($14.99) — three proteins, the whole menu in one plate. Best value: any Island Favorites combo at $13.99. Best single item: Kalbi Short Ribs ($16.49). Cheapest real meal: Grilled Spam & Eggs ($11.49). And add a Spam musubi ($6.49) regardless — it travels better than anything else on the menu.
What Hawaiian BBQ chicken actually is
The single most ordered item across the entire category deserves a proper explanation. Hawaiian BBQ chicken is boneless chicken thigh — not breast — marinated in a soy, brown sugar, ginger, garlic and pineapple juice mixture, then char-grilled over high heat and glazed with a thicker reduction of the same sauce at the end.
Three things make it distinct from mainland barbecue chicken: the sugar caramelises rather than the smoke penetrating, the pineapple enzyme tenderises the thigh, and it is cooked in about eight minutes rather than three hours. It is grilled chicken with a barbecue-flavoured glaze, and calling it barbecue is a naming convention rather than a cooking method.
The full Hawaiian BBQ menu guide covers how the rest of the category works.
Chicken katsu — the sleeper order
Katsu arrived in Hawaii through Japanese plantation workers and stayed. Ono Hawaiian BBQ's version is boneless thigh, seasoned, dredged in panko and deep-fried, then sliced across into strips and served with a thick, sweet-sour katsu sauce that is closer to Worcestershire and ketchup than anything else.
Two practical points. It is the best cold leftover on any menu in this category — the panko keeps its structure and the sauce is served on the side. And it is the item children reliably eat, which matters if you are feeding a family.
The macaroni salad question
People raised on the mainland often push the macaroni salad aside, and they are misreading the plate. Hawaiian mac salad is deliberately soft — the pasta is overcooked so it absorbs mayonnaise and becomes creamy rather than dressed. There is no celery, no mustard, no relish and no vinegar bite. Just macaroni, a lot of mayonnaise, grated carrot, salt and pepper.
Its job is temperature and texture contrast against a hot, sweet, char-grilled protein. Eating a plate lunch without it is like eating Texas brisket without the pickle — technically possible, structurally worse.
Ono Hawaiian BBQ ordering strategy
What you are eating, calorie-wise
Every figure in this section is Ono Hawaiian BBQ's own published calorie count for that item. The Cal column in the full menu below carries the rest of them, plate by plate. Two caveats before the table: the chain publishes nothing for steamed rice or macaroni salad sold on their own, so there is no separate line for either, and the plate figures are what the brand states for the plate rather than a whole-tray sum of our own.
| Order | Calories (published) |
|---|---|
| Grilled Chicken Breast plate | 330 |
| Hawaiian BBQ Beef plate | 453 |
| Hawaiian BBQ Chicken plate | 460 |
| Teriyaki Chicken plate | 460 |
| Kalua Pork with Cabbage plate | 480 |
| Island Fire Chicken plate | 548 |
| Chicken Katsu plate | 890 |
| Kalbi Short Ribs plate | 1,050 |
| Hawaiian BBQ Mix | 820 |
| Grilled Spam & Eggs | 770 |
| BBQ Chicken Mini Meal | 230 |
| Chicken Katsu Mini Meal | 445 |
The single biggest lever is not the sauce or the rice — it is frying. Chicken katsu is published at 890 against 460 for the Hawaiian BBQ chicken: same cut of thigh, nearly double the calories, and the whole difference is the panko and the fryer. The same pattern runs through the seafood, where crispy shrimp is 800 and island white fish 690 while every grilled protein plate sits under 550. If you want the lightest thing on the board it is still the Grilled Chicken Breast plate at 330, unsauced white meat and less than half a plate of chicken katsu.
Sauce matters much less than people assume. The BBQ glaze and the teriyaki come out identical at 460 each, the BBQ beef is 453, and the Island Fire spicy version only reaches 548 — a spread of under 100 calories across four glazed plates. Choose those four on taste, exactly as you would choose them on price.
The mini meals are the cleanest lever of all, because the published figures come in at almost exactly half the regular plate every time: BBQ chicken 230 against 460, chicken katsu 445 against 890, island fire 274 against 548, crispy shrimp 400 against 800. If you want a smaller version of the plate you already like, that is what the mini meal gives you — the value argument against it stands, but as a portion-control tool the numbers are as predictable as it gets. At the other end, Kalbi Short Ribs at 1,050 is the heaviest single plate on the menu, and the Hawaiian BBQ Mix gets you kalbi alongside two other proteins for 820.
Ono does not publish a figure for the musubi, the Aloha Plates, the BBQ & Katsu Mix, the Kalua Combo, the family meal or the keiki meal, so none is quoted here. Asking for one scoop of rice instead of two is still worth doing if you want a lighter plate — most locations will do it — but the chain publishes no number for the rice, so we are not putting one on it.
Ono Hawaiian BBQ vs Hawaiian food generally
Worth being clear about what this is and is not. Ono Hawaiian BBQ serves the plate lunch tradition — the everyday, working food of modern Hawaii, itself a blend of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese and Filipino influences layered onto Native Hawaiian ingredients.
What it does not serve is traditional Native Hawaiian cuisine. There is no poi, no laulau, no lomi salmon, no haupia. Kalua pork is the only item on the menu with a genuine pre-contact Hawaiian lineage, and even that is cooked in an oven rather than an imu.
That is not a criticism — the plate lunch is authentically Hawaiian, just recently so. It simply means that if you are expecting a luau menu, this is a different thing.
Takeaway and reheating
Hawaiian plate lunches travel better than almost any other restaurant food, which is why they were invented. Two notes: ask for the sauce on the side if you are eating more than thirty minutes later, and never microwave the macaroni salad — take the lid off, eat it cold, and reheat only the rice and protein.