Ai Ono Cafe

We stopped in for a quick bite before our flight and were saddened to find that Ribs weren’t available yet, even though it was nearly 5:30. Waiting for the meals took a little longer than seemed necessary, especially because there were only 3 tables seated in the café. We opted for burgers that weren’t fantastic but satisfied the hunger craving. The French Fries were the highlight of the meal, freshly made and piping hot. We had to dine and dash quickly as we suddenly heard our flight making the last boarding call, so we didn’t get to finish our meals, but overall it was OK.

We stopped by here for one last local menu before we left Hawaii. The service is absolutely horrible. We did not know we needed to purchase the meal before ordering and mistakenly waited in front of the kitchen. The lady who worked at the kitchen with a unhappy face/​attitude pointed at the cashier and basically wanted us to get lost. After we paid for two Spam musubi and went back to the kitchen area, she slammed our menu on the corner and walked away. I know i’m eating at the airport and did not expect the best of service, but i definitely do not expect that type of service in Hawaii. Not to mention the spam musubi was soak in soy sauce. It was not tasty and somewhat disgusting. I will not recommend anyone to eat here.

If you have time sit in the table service side. Service is a little slow but they were very busy.
I had the Aloha Kobe burger and it was one of the best burgers that I have had. Did not expect this at the airport eateries.

Pretty tasty Nice grill menu fresh sandwiches great view. Charging station along wall for phones and laptops

Waiting for a flight home, Ai Ono is a nice choice to fill up on local Hawaiian food. It’s much better than what’s offered on the airlines for purchase.
The orders:
Fried Rice — perfect for both kids and adults — great value at only $ 2.79 — perfect snacking size.
Teri Chicken Plate — typical flavor with rice and mac salad
Lg soda and lg bottled water — typical airport prices on these
One of the better values in airport dining in all of the US.

I’ve only tried this place for their spam musubi. It was pretty good and satisfying to snack on while waiting for our flight.

Not to bad for airport food.

They were out of fried rice :(and the other food just wasn’t that good, but what can you really expect at a fast food place in an airport? The guy who worked there was friendly though.

Working here at the airport temporarily.
I’ve eaten here quite a few times now and would prefer this over my home airport’s fast food options!
For the same price as Burger King or California Pizza Kitchen, you get local-​style/​plate lunches to choose from. Although as a local, I would prefer potato-​mac salad as opposed to the «steamed veggies» which probably just costs more for the restaurant.
Other than that though, I’m sold! Much mahalo to the staff:)

I tried saimin for the first time and it was decent. Keep in mind that this is airport food so don’t expect anything too fancy. It’s pretty pricey but you get giant shrimps with your noodle. Overall I would recommend you try it if you’re hungry and have time to kill while waiting for your flight.

It’s A-​Ok for airport food!
We shared the Caramelized Pineapple Pancakes, sounded like a nice, sweet treat since we didn’t see anything unique like it at most of the breakfast eateries on the island. It was a bit too sweet –ease up on the brown sugar! The pancakes however, were super fluffy. Since my cousin and I found it so sweet, we only shared one pancake. My aunt and uncle took it to their table and devoured it cause the cakes were just that fluffy and good by itself.
The fried rice was delicious, nice and meaty! Unfortunately, an order is just a scoop. So my husband, who can eat a whole plate of fried rice to himself, went back and asked for four orders which they put in a bowl for him.
My other cousins ordered Spam masubi’s which they liked and bought more for the flight home. So while it may not be the best, it was better than airport fast food joints!

Seems like this place does not get very much positive reviews: O. I happened to have enjoyed my meal of shoyu ramen (even though it was at an airport) and enjoyed the green scenery while I awaited my flight to Honolulu.

Aside from a few newsstands where you can buy mac snacks and Starbucks, I think this is the only place to eat at the Lihui airport. It has a cute Hawaiian name buy of course its just another HMS Host establishment. You can pick up a sandwich bit I went for a freshly made locals favorite. For $ 10 I got a chicken teri plate. It was a chicken breast with two scoops of rice and some pickled veggies. I enjoyed my meal while watching the occasional plane on the runway and keeping an eye in the ocean in the background. If I could give partial stars I would give it 2.75 stars.

For an airport café, this isn’t a bad place to stop in. They have some local flavors and many other snack options for nearly every palate. The prices were a bit high, but it is an airport. We just grabbed a bottle of water and tried the Portuguese Bean Soup. It was better than just good, but wasn’t amazing. My parents got a couple of parfaits. No complaints from them at all.

We were looking to chill before our flight back to Oakland and the Mea Inu bar next door was closed for renovations, but saw they had a temporary bar set up in the corner of the café (
).
For some reason I decided to get a pre-​made tuna sandwich to go with my beer (
). The bread was really dry and I ended up forking out the tuna salad.
The bartender was super slow. It took about 10 minutes for her to serve the one person ahead of us and another 5 minutes to open a new bottle of cabernet. I wanted to give her a hand with the cork-​screw!

$ 10+ for an udon noodle not even half the size of what I have eaten at other places for much cheaper. Outrageous! The bowl was teeny tiny. And even I could tell that the noodles were low quality.
Also, something appeared wrong with the cashier woman — she seemed tremendously confused and couldn’t answer our questions. When she spoke, her words came out in a mangled jumbling murmur. We were trying to decide whether she had had a stroke or was just bored out of her mind and too lazy to open her mouth enough to speak coherently. Very strange.
If you come here, keep in mind that you have to place your order with the cashier, NOT the food counter.
This is one of two bad restaurant choices in Lihue airport, and it is hard to decide which is worse. Both are overpriced and serve ridiculously tiny portions. I guess quality of service breaks the tie, and I would say head to the Mea Inu restaurant next door if you at least want friendly service.

As far as airport food, it’s not bad.
Burgers are popular but expect a wait.
We stuck with the simple shoyu ramen.
Ai Ono accepts all credit cards including Amex.

Stopped in to get some sandwiches to take on the plane, since we don’t get decent food on planes anymore. This place had $ 9 sandwiches where you could choose from turkey, ham, tuna, veggie, etc. and to which you could add a choice of toppings (tomatoes, cucumbers, carrot, lettuce, onion). Once in line, I discovered from their signs you can’t have any tomatoes, cucumbers, or peppers in your sandwich if you want to take it into the departure lounge to get on the plane. It took maybe half an hour for them just to take our orders, even though there were only a handful of people. Finally it’s my turn. So, I ask them to make me their veggie sandwich without those three prohibited items. It takes another half hour for them to make the sandwiches. Luckily we’d arrived early for our flight!
Once on the plane, I found I’d waited all that time and paid them $ 9 for a leaf of lettuce and a slice of onion on bread. So their «veggie» sandwich doesn’t include anything else aside from the items in the add-​on toppings list (plus they didn’t even give me the carrot topping)?! Couldn’t they have warned me when I made my order that I might end up with a lettuce-​onion sandwich because the «veggie» sandwich in fact only includes what they called their «toppings»?? Or did someone make a major mistake and forget to add the veggie filling altogether (although I find it hard to believe that they didn’t realize that they’d only put lettuce and onion in it)?!
Watch out if you’re in a hurry or want a veggie sandwich, and make sure you check your sandwich before you leave! The other sandwich they made for us seemed ok… although I think I’ll give one star for the really slow service and the poor «veggie sandwich», both of which I consider pretty unacceptable, especially the «veggie» sandwich!!!

Had some time to kill before boarding and decide to get some grub. Saw this place, checked out the menu and tried not to think about the prices… ahh! Oh well, i was hungry so I decided to try the Ahi Ono mini burgers. Got the steak patty (can choose chicken) also includes thick cut fries.
The mini burgers were pretty good, cooked to order, wasn’t dry and the fries were nice and crispy. My friends got the Loco moco and ramen, both were satisfied with their meals. Not bad for airport food.
Service was friendly, a little slow. Took about 10mins to prepare the hot meals. They also have build-​your-​own sandwich option where you don’t have to wait too long.
I’d be happy coming back again for a pre-​flight meal. :D
Aloha!

Spent a week in a Kauai Resort. On our way back home, we flew out of Lihue airport early in the morning so we ate on the run. To our surprise, we had the best breakfast (my wife agreed) of the entire week at this Airport Café. The Moco Loco was actually the best I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve eaten it a lot.
If you’re ever flying out of Lihue Airport on an a.m. flight, have the Moco Loco here. Nice way to say Aloha to Hawaii.