Review Pono Hawaiian Kitchen & Tap - Santa Cruz

What a hidden gem. Delicious food and plenty of open seating in the back next to the parking lot. It took a bit to get our food but it was definitely worth the wait. The poke salad is amazing as it has all my favorites - seaweed salad, edamame, ahi poke, avocado, mixed greens and miso dressing.

Can I start with Onolicious 😋! Almost everything we had was delicious and just took it to the next level. Literally felt like I had to just savor each bite. 1. Pono pupu platter: Kalua pork sliders, coconut shrimp, and spam musubi. The flavors of the kalua pork with the island slaw and pineapple bbq sauce was scrumptious. I'm not a fan of coconut shrimp but this was delicious. They do not skimp on the spam in the spam musubi. It's a nice thick slice. 2. Pork Lau Lau plate - So juicy and mouth watering. We were so full but couldn't stop eating it. 3. Pono BBQ combo- I substituted chicken teriyaki for kalua pork. Couldn't finish it but had it for lunch again the next day and it tasted just as good. 4. Keiki- chicken strips (katsu) with fries. I couldn't go without trying the katsu but it was just ok and not a fan of the katsu sauce. They have so many home made goods like macadamia brownies and ginger snap cookies, or chocolate peanut butter cookies. All so delicious. Couldn't leave without buying mango jam and hot sauces

I spent 10+ years living on Maui and I'd say this place is pretty authentic. They are absolutely killing it here! 🤙 Poke was my favorite

Food is decent but a little pricy for what you get. Fries were pretty bland and the jalapeños were canned and did not have much flavor. Decent place overall. Restrooms are nice and clean and so is the restaurant

First found this place years ago when I was working on a project. Very first time I had Poke here and my life was forever changed. I brought a few friends last weekend and their minds were changed on Poke too! Definitely worth a stop if you’re passing by or making a trip and bookmarking.

Great menu for both food and beers. Lots old IPAs if you like those. Price was reasonable. They have $11 for a flight of any 4 beers. Amazing time here with my son.

Honestly the food is pretty good. It’s over priced but everything is in California. What bothered me was they offer no service yet request a tip at the counter when you order and have removed the button to decline. Your only option is to tip them for doing nothing or manually enter zeros in the “other tip” selection. It’s obviously intentional and confusing. I think this place is loosing business for this greedy practice.

Nice find! We were looking for a place to pick up lunch and head to Capitola lunch. Thought this would be easy to eat on the beach. We were right, but we didn't eat on the beach. We decided to eat in their outside area. The food was really good. The kalua pork was juicy and the Mac salad was really good. The coconut shrimp were crispy. The chicken teriyaki was a little charred for my liking but everything was very good.