Big Island Grill

Great food, better service with the exception of host when first arrived. Had the omelet w/​everything. Spam and eggs/​w/​rice. Good value and portions.

Not a bad lunch spot. It’s a very friendly diner, featuring lots of local flavor! (It’s a bit of a drive from the Resort Areas up by Waikoloa) but if you really crave locally prepared Hawaiian-​style dishes, then give this unpretentious place a try. (By the time we visited here, my «other half» was getting pretty tired of loco moco, and was craving fresh, crisp veggies with no seasoning or sauces. But that’s not really their forte.)

You cannot go wrong with this place! This was a great place for us to have lunch and dinner. Hawaiian food is awesome and the loco moco did not disapoint me. Only thing, not familiar with the area and was looking for it at night… a little harder to find if you don’t know how the place looks.
Will definitely come here again for deserts!

Love it here. It felt like a family get together whenever we ate here. The portions are huge and delicious! I like loved the mixed plate of where you get to choose two types of meat, with Mac salad, and another side. Their mudslide pie was amazing and huge! Need help to eat that big kahuna. Staff were kind and attentive. If I came back to Kona, my first stop would be here.

Loco moco & island mimosa was extremely delicious! My family came here for dinner and we all enjoyed what we ordered. However when we came for breakfast, we were very disappointed. We ordered pancakes with coconut syrup and eggs Benedict. The coconut syrup was disappointing. Pancakes were just so-​so. As for the eggs Benedict, they were the worst I’ve ever had. From a very delicious dinner to a disappointing breakfast. Left me in a bad mood because that was our last meal in Hawaii.

We stayed in the tourist area which was not too far from this Kona gem and if you’re craving something different than the American bar and grill scene along the coast, you should definitely check this place out.
Having never tried loco moco and only hearing of it from some friends and reading reviews, this is a MUST try when you come to this restaurant.
My super loco moco consisted of deep fried shrimp, chicken katsu, Portuguese sausage and spam and while on the surface this seems like the farthest of food combinations you’ll see in 99% of restaurants you’ll ever visit in your life, this ABSOLUTELY works when it’s thrown on rice and drenched in some very delicious gravy.
Finish this meal with the Kona Mud Pie dessert ice cream/​cake. You should share this with your friends as it is a healthy portion slice and after the more than generous amounts of food from your Super Loco Moco chances are you will struggle to finish this on your own. Unless you’re a fatty.
The service here we received was top-​notch and very friendly. The owner is a nice Chinese lady from Hong Kong so if you can speak the language, feel free to engage her in your native tongue and you’ll be pleasantly rewarded with some nice stories.
Easily the best food we had in Kona!

Fish & chips was delicious. We will be coming back!
Great location and friendly servers!

Yup, there are few places that we call a 5, and obviously it doesn’t take view or décor. Quite frankly, I don’t think we have ever done more than breakfast. But it’s No.1 on our «to do» when we hit the tar mack in Kona.
Put your name on the list at the door and then go in for the short stack, banana and macnut pancakes. Pour on the coconut syrup and maybe 8 pats of butter. If you like a protein breaky, the Super Loco Moco is for you! Pick three meats, they add 2 eggs your way, 3 scoops of rice and DELICIOUS brown gravy. I got the gravy on the side, «trying to kid myself». Back to hotel for a long sunny nap.
PS Service is so Island friendly!

It can be a long wait, but that’s usually a good sign. We had a very long day of travel and hiking and I wanted some (somewhat) traditional Hawaiian big plates to replace those lost calories. Big Island Grill fit the bill and filled us up. I had the chicken katsu with roast pork. The gravy was fantastic and went well with the garlic mashed potatoes. The wife had meatloaf which she enjoyed too. Portions were big and the taste was worth the wait.

Solid 4 stars
Pleasant dining spot well located near the Kona hotels and condos and plenty of parking and open till 9pm. Good diner type food but their Hawaiian dishes are really quite good. I thought the loco moccos at Hawaiian Style Café and Broke da Mouth were good, and I have to say the one at BIG is up there as well. The Super Loco Mocco lets you pick 3 meats so I had the hamburger patty, chicken Katsu, and Portuguese sausage. Eggs over easy. Eggs were just a few seconds too runny but otherwise perfect. Gravy, IMHO, was one of the better ones — smooth, beefy flavor, and not with alot of the corn starch thickening. Wife’s large saimen was really Hugh with a very pleasant broth and lots of cha siu. Prices were quite inexpensive compared to other places in the tourist area of Kona and quantity was very generous, way too much to eat in one sitting. Excellent, relaxed service. I like this place.

While visiting the Big Island, I ended up looking for some Hawaiian food in the area and came across this place.
It has easy accessible and free parking as its located in a small strip mall. Came here on a Saturday evening and the place was half full, we got seated quickly and service was nothing to complain about.
The food: I ordered the Super Loco Moco with chicken katsu, Portuguese sausage and shredded pork. This place was huge and I couldn’t even finish it. So if you order it be either hungry or prepare to share with a partner.
The lady friend got the Fish & Chips and she had about 5 pieces of fish in her plate and really enjoyed it.
One thing that was weird about this place is that their Macaroni salad is a mix of potato salad with macaroni salad. So be aware of that if you don’t like potato salad.

Big Island Grill definitely has big portions of yummy food! We ordered:
*Cesar salad to share: ⁴⁄₅ stars, basic
*Kona coffee mudpie: ⁵⁄₅ stars, huge portion & yummy! surprisingly not too sweet because of the coffee flavored ice cream
I can’t even remember what we ordered for our entrees because the kona coffee mudpie was too good :) Once I remember I will update this post… but what I do remember is that all the food we ordered was tasty!

We decided to come here after a long day out touring friends, and for me this is a first, but this place was recommended by one of our friends.
It’s a simple sit-​in diner with local kine food for the family. The service was great and friendly. Fridays special is the Hawaiian Plate with Laulau, but unfortunately they ran out… guessing it must’ve been good… Instead I ordered the Kalua Pork and Cabbage. It was fairly good as well. It was just 2 scoops of rice, macaroni salad, and Kalua Pork Cabbage.
Overall, this place is okay if you’re looking to go for cheap and local hawaiian food for lunch/​dinner.

We were looking to eat somewhere off the resort. My current favorite travel book Hawaii Revealed suggested Big Island Grill for local food, and dang, it did not disappoint.
When we walked in, we weren’t so sure, but we were starving. The décor is pretty sparse and stark, but we were seated and served quickly. My brother got the loco moco with Spam, which didn’t impress anyone, including our server, but there was egg on my face when I tried the gravy in that dish. It was incredible. I had the Kalua pork, which was awesome, but it didn’t have gravy. Everyone seemed very pleased with their meals, but those of us without gravy were envious of those who did and snuck a lot of bites.
It was a fantastic meal, and if we’d had more time on the Big Island, I’m sure we would have gone back, but there were just so many delicious places to try in Kona!

I’m so glad we found this place as we were cruzin around in the area killing time before we picked up people at the airport. So we found this cool joint and we said we’re coming back.
As we opened the door we saw a line so that’s a pretty good sign to me if the place is packed with local people.
Sign your name and the number of people in your party and wait to be called.
We waited maybe about 10 minutes not to bad.
We had a party of 5 and drinks were taken right away. They serve Coca-​Cola yay a plus for me.
I gotta say good food, friendly service, reasonable prices.
I will ba back when I’m in the area. Go here for a local atmosphere. Mahalo Big Island Grill. Great job at running this place.

Big Island Grill is a local diner conveniently located in Kona town. (Which is the reason why I visited here 3 times.)
During my first visit I stopped by for dinner on a Friday night. It was very busy and had to wait for a little while, but didn’t mind because I wasn’t in any rush.
On Fridays and Saturdays they have a prime rib special for $ 23.95. It wasn’t that special to me. Nothing good, nothing bad. 3 stars for the prime rib. The «special» consisted of a 12 oz prime rib, ajus, horse radish sauce, sautéed veggies, and your choice of rice, mashed potatoes, or fries. The side salad was huge, but plain just lettuce and a few thin slices of carrots. The prime rib was cooked to my liking, medium but was missing the flavor. Don’t get me wrong it had flavor but nothing that was special. The service was really slow because they were so busy, since it was a Friday night, but at least they were very friendly.
The other two (2) times was for breakfast, but only because my coworker wanted to eat there. The 1^st time we went for breakfast I ordered the Eggs Benedict with toast. It was ok. My sour dough bun was over toasted so it was hard and difficult to cut. The hollandaise sauce was plain nothing that wowed me. The 2^nd time we came for breakfast I was a little disappointed about my corned beef patties. A corned beef patty that I would rate a 5 stars would consist of real corned beef, with a variety of spices to give it flavor, and some chopped up potatoes, white onions, green onions, and minced garlic. This was not the case. 2 stars for the corned beef patties because it was more like potato patties with tiny bits of corned beef with no flavor. Should be named potato patties on the menu, not corned beef patties, because that is really more of what you’re getting.
5 stars for the service during breakfast. Our server was very friendly and always checked to see how we were doing. She remembered that we wanted separate checks and also remembered her regulars names and orders. Didn’t notice if she had a name tag or not, but she was the best server that I had during my Kona visit. She’s probably one of the reasons why people keep coming back.

— Plane lands
— Get bags
— Get rental car
— Drive to Big Island Grill
— Say Aloha to workers
— Order a Kona Brewing Fire Rock beer
— Order kalbi beef, mac salad, rice plate lunch
— Eat the ono food and drink beer
— Pay
— Say Aloha to workers
— Go surf
Rinse.
Repeat (every year).
Mahalo.

We found their name amusing. They printed B.I.G. and it’s Big Island Grill. lol
Anyway, we dined in for an early dinner with their saimin and a slice of sweet potato haupia cheesecake. A super loco moco was ordered to go for later in the evening.
This place is great for groups and casual dining. There is plenty of parking. The menu has a bit of everything to satisfy different palates/​preferences, too.
It’s our first saimin experience. Having read about the history and influence of this dish, we were interested in trying this in different places on the islands we visited.
We had ordered a regular but we didn’t realize half way through that ours came in a large size. At $ 11, the dish is a clean broth that resembled a Japanese dashi. The mixings included what looks like a dashimaki (Japanese style egg), cantonese style BBQ charsiu, wontons, shrimp, and scallions. The mixings were all delicious. The broth was clean. Shrimp is fresh, charsiu is lean and not chewy, wonton is average, egg is cooked just right. However, the noodles were overcooked. It would be a perfect bowl if the noodles is just slightly under.
The cheesecake was a good size for 2 to share! It’s made with purple sweet potatoes, that gives the pie a purplish color. With whipped cream and drizzled with a coconut syrup, this was a really filling happy closing to a meal.
Our to go super loco moco: you can choose 3 types of meats, comes with gravy, 2 eggs, all of that over rice. We picked: corn beef hash, katsu, and burger patty. What a feast!!! We packed some sirarcha to go (the real stuff, btw), and shared it between the two of us.
The beef hash was our favorite. The katsu would’ve been even better because it was our fault for getting to go, otherwise it would’ve been crunchy. The burger patty is cooked just right. Eggs ordered over easy is just perfect as well.
Service was real friendly, and they were helpful. It should be reminded that HI bans plastic bags. Even if you are willing to pay for one, there is none to offer. So they wrapped our to-​go with saran wrap and we appreciated it so much!
We saw other table’s feast, and their dishes are huge portions. In the future we will return. :)

Why does WRONG taste so RIGHT? Make your own Moco-​Loco begs the menu. I did with spam and it was everything Id hoped it would be. We had the privilege of eating here twice thanks to the horrible experience with Paradise Helicopters but their loss was Big Island’s Grills gain.
Breakfast here is fast and inexpensive. They keep the coffee coming until you cross your legs and beg for mercy for them to stop.

This was our first dinner stop on our trip. We knew about this place. just didn’t know we had stumbled upon it because the signs are a bit hard to see at night.
I ordered the beef teriyaki steak with a side of garlic mashed potatoes and vegetables. The portion of meat was generous. The beef was tender and marinated in a sauce that was a little sweet and savory. I tasted ginger in the sauce and it was just delightful! The taste of the beef reminded me of eating beef jerky. I wanted to finish it all and almost did, but sadly couldn’t. The mashed potatoes were okay, but could have used more garlic, in my opinion. I tasted some of my mom’s side salad with the sesame dressing and fell in love. It was so tasty and creamy!
Our dinner came out in a timely manner. No complaints about the service! Would definitely come back to try their desserts if I’m ever back on the Big Island!