Weird title, right?

It’s not your typical blog post, but here’s how it came about.

We asked on our Instagram stories if our friends wanted a list of restaurants here on the island that are popular to dine at and always recommended, but that we were personally underwhelmed with and actually recommend avoiding. The vast majority of votes were “yes”.

Before we move on, we want to say wholeheartedly that this is not a restaurant bashing post. These are our experiences or views on really popular dining facilities that we feel are overrated. There are some INCREDIBLE restaurants on the island of Oahu that we highly recommend over these hot spots.

Being regular restaurant patrons ourselves, we’ve tried many a dining location on the island of Oahu. We regularly check reviews and menus before we eat somewhere, to hopefully ensure our money will be worth spending. All of the restaurants listed below were either recommended to us by more than one person, or had great reviews online. Without further adieu, here are the top 5 restaurants in Honolulu that we personally “pass” on.

5. Restaurant 604

Yelp Review Status: 4.2 stars

Located within a couple minutes of JBPHH, this restaurant is always jam-packed at both lunch and dinner. The view is beautiful and the location is just right. The pricing isn’t too bad either compared to typical Hawaii restaurants. Why then do we recommend avoiding this hot spot?

The food is incredibly bland and the service is awful.

Having eaten here multiple times, the story has never changed. The last and final time we ate at Restaurant 604 was when we got the mother-load of bad service. The server spilled water on Gerardo and didn’t apologize, put all the waters in front of me to pass out, never checked on us during our meal, our waters were never refilled, and the food was awful. Gabriel ordered a kids burger and was given half a patty, my friend ordered a lettuce wrap ahi sandwich, which they brought to her dry, and when she asked for a side of aioli (after getting up to ask the manager since our server was never at the table), she was given plain mayo.

We’ve never walked away from this restaurant satisfied and felt like it was worth our time or money.

4. Buho Cocina y Cantina

Yelp Review Status: 3.3 stars

With nearly 1,500 reviews, this restaurant has only 3.3 stars on Yelp. But by word of mouth, many people recommend this place.

In terms of aesthetics, they nailed it. This place is fresh, aesthetically pleasing, open and airy, which is not surprising considering it’s a rooftop bar and grill. But that’s where the buck stops for us.

The food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. Our hangups with this Waikiki restaurant came in other forms.

For starters, we find it incredibly unappealing to order a cocktail and be served in a plastic cup. Secondly, we don’t want to pay $40 for a lobster quesadilla only to be served on what can be described as a small cookie sheet. Third, the food is your typical Mexican, restaurant chain type food. Nothing special.

This place has a lot of potential, but for now, we recommend avoiding if you hear someone telling you to try it out.

3. Island Vintage Coffee

Yelp Review Status: 4.3 stars

During one of our staycations in Waikiki, we decided to walk down to the Royal Hawaiian Center and try this favored coffee shop. After waiting in line about 15 minutes to order, we finally got up to the cashier and let her know we wanted 2 medium chai tea lattes with oat milk. The whopping grand total?

$17.

As people who are not afraid to pay a little extra for good coffee or tea, we were shocked.

Not only were these drinks incredibly expensive, there was also nothing special about them. They were your standard iced chai tea lattes, and had we gone to any other coffee shop in Waikiki, we would have saved $5.

$5 may not seem like a lot, but hey, that’s a pastry at least!

2. Teddy’s Bigger Burgers

Yelp Review Status: 3.7 stars

If you ask around, many, many people will stake the claim that Teddy’s are the best burgers on the island. While Teddy’s is good, there is a reason they consistently get 3.7 stars on almost all of their locations on Oahu. The service is usually lackluster, it’s fairly expensive, and the food is your average burger joint items. Plus, the wait for your meal is typically pretty long.

In our humble opinion, there are far better burger joints that exceed expectations in flavor, service, and portion sizes.

We always walk away from Teddy’s feeling like we paid a lot for burgers and fries that were just okay. Meh. Blah.

And our kids admit that the only reason they ask to eat at Teddy’s is because they want a milkshake.

1. Duke’s Waikiki

Yelp Review Status: 4.0 stars

Ahh, the beloved and famous Duke’s.

If you go on OpenTable right now to make a reservation at Duke’s, you’re going to be waiting a long time to get in. This insanely popular Waikiki eatery is always packed, and even if you have reservations, you’re still going to wait a little while to be seated.

So why is it #1 on our list of places to avoid?

The food is just not that impressive. It’s that simple.

For the amount of time you have to wait to even snag a reservation here, park and make your way to the restaurant, and wait to get your food, you could have had better eats, faster. And while the restaurant itself (and many patrons) boast the amazing view of Waikiki from this location, that’s honestly only guaranteed if you get the right table. We could barely see the water the last time we were there.

If you’re going to eat here, just know that the food is decent. We haven’t walked away hating our meal, but we don’t walk away being impressed either.

We’ll end by putting it to you this way – you’ll never hear a local recommend this eatery. You’ll only ever hear a tourist say this place is a must.

Do you think we missed the mark? Are there any restaurants on this list you love? Are there any that need to be added? We’d love to hear from you.