Kona Kakes & Plates

The best place for Hawaiian desert and food. I come here for lunch at least once a week. The strawberry and caramel cakes are amazing and kalua pork nachos are the best that I’ve ever had.

Got their Caramel Macadamia Nut cake and it was probably one of the best cakes I have ever had. The cake wasnt too sweet, although I must say there was a bit more frosting than I wouldve liked. Overall would definitely come here again. Next time I’ll definitely try their food!

The dobash is almost too rich but that’s dobash for you. Great pastries and cakes here. The 8″ cake might have referenced how high it was not just 8″ across

I liked this place. I’ve had better mac salad… but I like the mac that has potato in it. Their Teri beef is good. The Teri chicken was just OK. Their garlic shrimp was very fresh and yummy. Now their cake… YUMMY!!! No other words for that!

I ordered a caramel macadamia nut cake for my baby shower. They may not make the prettiest cakes, but they make up for it with taste. I usually have a ton of cake leftover after events, but this cake was devoured. Delicious!

This has become my favorite bakery to order from. It’s a little out of the way for me and a little hard if you’re going there for the first time. When you walk in, it’s not aesthetically pleasing. It doesn’t have a presentation of bakery goods behind a glass. It reminds me of little humble plate lunch places in Hawaii. However, the quality of the cake is top notch! The cake is super moist and the whipped cream is light. I order the macadamia nut cakes, which is a hit at all the parties. It’s on the pricier side compared to some Asian bakeries I used to order from, but I get way more compliments on the cake.

Full disclosure: We didn’t get the cake.
We pass this place a lot because the Fiji yogurt next door is my son’s favorite and the Ballast Point is husband’s. I have been wanting to stop by and pick up something here. My son and I were going to Fiji and stopped and ordered stuff to go. My son got the ground beef steak (that they shape by hand) with the works — macaroni salad (excellent), rice, and salad. He enjoyed it very much. I got a mango smoothie to go. I have to learn never to order mango based dishes in the US. I just don’t like the South American mango varieties — price of having grown up with the best mangoes in the world in India. Next time, I might order the passion fruit one. The service was very friendly and sweet. I would go back more often if they added vegetarian options.

Amazing Hawaiian cakes. If you really want those fruit cake feels… This is the one shop stop. Prices are a little up there so be prepared to get high quality cake.

2 stars because the menu did not contain a kids menu. my food contained way too much garlic on top of the green onion. Rice and pork on the dry side, and no salt on food or offered on table only sauces offered. I could eat the sides all day long, Mac salad was amazing! Wish I had tried the Slaw!

Love this place for authentic Hawaiian food in San Diego. You will never want to go back to L&L after you’ve had the kalua pig or teriyaki chicken here. Combo lunch plates are around 10 $ after tax and include your choice of meat, rice, salad, and your choice of side. I always get their macaroni salad which is delicious and reminds me of my time in Hawaii.

I gave the shop a «4» especially because of the great customer service and Ono cake. I called ahead and paid for the cake. The payment was processed and I received a text receipt right away. The store was only open on ½/​16 because of the holiday and the baker stayed after 3p waiting for me to pick up the cake. She even gave me. Courtesy call and said if I could not pick it up that day it will be at shop the next day. Luckily we picked it up and brought it back to the hotel. It’s great that I found a bakery that has tropical flavors in SD. Definitely have to come back for the caramel macadamia cake, and try the other flavors…

Okay, if you’re hunting for where this place is do not attempt to look for a sign. They painted the plaza gray but they don’t have a big sign. It’s located closer to the Ballast Point side. We walked along the plaza looking for it and totally missed it.
I would say you’re literally getting the food made to order so it kinda took a while to get our food but it’s fresh so no complaints. The Macaroni salad is pretty standard but seems pretty light despite the mayonnaise. The meat was good as not gross or weird quality. Pretty standard I would say. I got the Kahuna plate? It allows you your choice of two ‘meats’ and one side. It comes with a little salad. We tried the Kalua Pork nachos. I really like the cheese sauce and they said it was their home made one. I haven’t had the opportunity to try their cakes as they first started out that way. The food isn’t bad and it’s a small sit down place and for sure a mom and pop place. Oh, no restroom up in here so yeah. I would come back. Friendly service and clean.

I wish I could give 10 stars for this place and I wish they could expand out to Northern California. The first time I tried their cake was from my sister-​in-​law. She ordered the Caramel Macadamia Nut with Hazelnut Cream Cake and it was AMAZING! Ever since that day, I have been ordering cakes from this place for my sons’ birthdays and just to order to take back with me home to Nor Cal when we come and visit.
I have also tried their pies. I believe it’s only seasonal unless I am wrong but everything is good! Everything is made fresh and upon request you can have them decorate the cake with leis etc. I cannot find any other place that can match the quality and goodness of their cakes and Janice is super nice!

By far the worst experience buying a cake. The lady that works there did not even consider/​listen to anything my sister wanted. We ordered a cake for her daughter’s baptism, and the cake given to us, looked NOTHING like what she wanted. Don’t get me wrong, their cakes are good. but the customer service while putting an order was horrible. Not only was it not the cake ordered, it came in two pieces and we were the ones responsible to put the smaller cake on top. Of course, nothing could be done about it… the baptism was that day and we needed a cake. At least for future references… to go else where.

I regret to inform you that everything you read in the other reviews is correct. Came here with a group of five right before a (relatively) long line assembled. I informed Janice that we were unfamiliar with Hawaiian food, expecting her to give suggestions, but she unfortunately did not get the hint. The five of us ordered consecutively — this point will be important later — and seated ourselves.
After waiting ten or so minutes, a man emerged from the kitchen with five Styrofoam containers. And, once again I must ask: Why do Hawaiian restaurants serve «for here» orders in such a wasteful manner? The man set three of the closed containers on our table and scurried over to the register to hand the two others to the police…
You guessed it, my food was confiscated by the authorities. However, we did not realize this until over ten minutes after my friends were served. Janice was horrified and promptly tried to ameliorate the problem. I really do not understand why she was so surprised given the excessive number of remarks about the bad service; maybe she does not read Unilocal.Anyways, she returned from the kitchen with two containers. Of course my order was wrong… So she threw a bun on the chicken teriyaki and called it a day.
So now to comment on the actual food: the Chicken Teriyaki Sandwich came with a side salad and a side — I chose quinoa. My salad was dressed lightly compared to my friends’ salads, which were doused in the sweet dressing. The quinoa looked lovely and colorful and had tasty tomatoes and edamame in it, however the actual quinoa grain was undercooked. The sandwich itself was pretty. The bun was delicious and fluffy, and I liked how the chicken tasted. Based on my two experiences with Hawaiian food, I have determined (I don’t know how accurate this is) that the meat is not well trimmed. Am I the only one who doesn’t enjoy excessively chewy, basically inedible bites?
Despite the initial service mishap and sub par lunch, I enjoyed the expereience. So, Janice is basically the nicest lady ever. She brought our table two free slices of cake in an attempt to make us not hate the establishment (maybe she knew I’d Unilocal it). Let me just say, that those cakes are expensive by anyone’s standards. Also, they were light, fluffy, moist (eww), and just all around delicious. So yes the service sucks, the lunch food is ehh, but Janice tried… And the cake was great.

Gotta love a family owned business, when you’re greeted by the young daughter, her older brother and mom. We asked what they were known for and the teenage son immediately told us all about the 20 year history of their cakes and when we asked about lunch suggested the authentic Kalua pig and the teriyaki beef plates. The little sister exclaimed that her favorite was the teriyaki chicken, lol. Big smiles from all around! Thr pork is delicious! The sweet pinapple salad dressing was totally unique, and the teriyaki beef was just the right amount of sweet and savory!

I don’t know where to start with this review. There is just too much to tell. The bakery was a bit hard to find because of the construction going on around the building… I ordered a ¼ sheet of Caramel Macadamia Nut cake. It was absolutely delicious. They were able to take my order the day before and have the cake for me the day of my son’s 5^th birthday party. A little hiccup with the packaging for the cake… my husband had to wait there for an hour and a half because the vendor to box the cakes up was running late.
Other than that it the cake was very light, moist, and the right amount of law wetness. I recommend this place if you’re tired of the conventional cakes that are dry and ridiculously sweet. They have a very refreshing flavor.
I’m updating my review from 5 to 3 stars because other than the hiccup with the packaging — we were charged double — paid for cake upon ordering and at pickup because the store copy receipt did not have a note that payment was taken upon ordering. It was inconvenient to drive there again to get the refund (it was a bit of a far drive). Also, it was difficult to call and try to talk to someone on the phone because no one answered the phone during store hours (I wanted to call and possibly see if they can refund me the amount remotely as the drive there was a bit far and we had to try to catch a flight that day). The 3 stars is because of the quality of the cake and the poor customer service that I received.
I’m not entirely sure if I will be back to check this place out given my experience.

I really don’t write bad reviews. It has to fall under these conditions:
(1) If customers service is horrible; meaning lack of organization, lack of knowledgeable staff, and failure to satisfy the customer.
(2) If the products or services rendered was far from expectations. Paying hard earned money on something you are very disappointed in.
(3) Combination of the two reasons above plus inconvenience time and money wasted.
On my recent visit it was a little bit of everything that equaled to 1 star. The cake my wife ordered was promised to be ready by 11am the next day. They called to inform they ran out of cake boxes and the vender will deliver more cake boxes by 1pm; the cake will be ready by 1pm. I show up around 12:40pm. Cake box vender not there and the cashier say the boxes will be there in 20 minutes… so to kill time my son and I have lunch there. The cashier disappears and at 1pm, he comes out and say our cake will be ready in 5 minutes. To make a longer story shorter, I finally left that place at 2pm. To make this experience even worst, my wife already paid for the cake at the time of order and the we were doubled charged. Now I’ll take some blame for this because I didn’t know my wife paid for it but the order slip didn’t say «Paid in full» so that prompted the cashier to ask for payment. We are leaving town today and called twice, left two messages, and no return phone call. We ended up going there and the owners tries to suggest her mailing us a cashiers check for refund. Still haven’t gotten our refund yet.
Bottom line, their cakes are very good but not good enough to go through all the inconvenience. I mean it’s like ordering a pizza but they can’t deliver it to you because they ran out of pizza boxes. That should never happen… but it did happen here.
Tip: FOLLOW UP ON YOUR CAKE ORDER AND THEN FOLLOW UP AGAIN.

I love love this place! Stop what you are doing and go get food, but more importantly a piece is cake from here! It’s kinda small and hidden but go! One of my friends took me here and now I go all the time. They are so kind and nice. They remembered that I was allergic to nuts after not being there for 4 months! There fish tacos are awesome!
They are really really cheap I don’t know how they do it!
Now onto their cakes! The POG cake and strawberry cake are to die for. Very light almost like a cloud. Very sweet, but not over powering. I’ve never had a cake quite like this. Must check out!
Warning: they have odd hours, close very early so double check the hours before heading over there.
MUST EAT KONA KAKES CAKES! go do it now!

I did not try any of their baked goods/​cakes, so this review is for their service and food…
Came here on a weekday… We ordered our food at the counter and sat down at the tables just outside… It seemed like our food took a little long to come out, we waited several minutes (but maybe we were just hungry? Hehe).
I ordered the kalua pork. This dish can sometimes be too salty, but I think theirs tasted pretty good, lots of cabbage added, flavorful and NOT too salty… We also ordered the teriyaki beef… Unfortunately, their teriyaki beef was VERY salty, you can tell just by looking at the picture.
Otherwise, service was friendly. The atmosphere is small and cozy. Limited parking spots. Restrooms shared with other businesses but clean.
Wish I tried their cakes!