Thanksgiving is Thursday, Nov. 26, and Honolulu Magazine has started its list of Thanksgiving menus around Oʻahu. Most of it is outside Waikiki, and the details sit behind Instagram photos, so we went to the restaurants’ own pages for the Waikiki entries. Our takeaway: if you’re in a hotel or condo without a car, the easiest Thanksgiving is a plate you pre-order and carry upstairs, not a table you hunt for that afternoon.
What happened
On Nov. 3, Honolulu Magazine’s Frolic Hawaiʻi team published Thanksgiving Menus at Restaurants Around Oʻahu, subtitled “60 dine-in and takeout offerings.” The page is a running list: each entry is a name, a neighborhood and a photo that links to the restaurant’s post, and the editors say they will keep adding menus.
By our count, nine entries are tagged Waikīkī: 100 Sails, Basalt, Buffet at the Hyatt, Deck, Hilton Waikīkī Beach, Hy’s Steak House, Kulu Kulu, ʻOlili and Side Street Inn. The rest are spread from Kakaʻako to ʻEwa Beach and Haleʻiwa. The magazine’s own advice is to “pay attention to pre-order deadlines.”
We pulled the official Thanksgiving pages for four of the Waikiki entries, plus Zippy’s, the local family-restaurant chain that says it has been selling holiday meals to go for over 20 years.
What it changes for a Waikiki stay
Here is what the restaurants themselves post for Nov. 26, checked Nov. 4, 2026:
| Where | What | Price | Time on Nov. 26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side Street Inn, 280 Beach Walk Ave. | Local Style Kalua Turkey Plate, to go | $40 | Pickup 11:30 am–6:30 pm |
| Side Street Inn, same address | Prix fixe for 4–5 guests, dine-in only | $185 | 11 am–5 pm, two-hour seatings |
| Basalt, Dukes Lane at Kuhio Ave. | Taste of Thanksgiving plate | $42 | Dinner 4–9 pm |
| Buffet at the Hyatt, Hyatt Regency Waikiki | Thanksgiving buffet | $110 per person, plus tax and gratuity | Seatings 1:30, 3:30, 5:30, 7:30 pm; 90-minute limit |
| 100 Sails, Prince Waikiki | Brunch buffet / dinner buffet | $111 / $109 adult | Brunch 9 am–1:30 pm; dinner 5–9:30 pm (dinner runs Nov. 26–29) |
The fine print is where the day gets decided.
Side Street Inn’s to-go plate is smoked Kalua turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, Portuguese sausage stuffing, potato mac salad, turkey gravy and cranberry sauce. The flyer says “Preorders Recommended - Limited Availability” and that the regular takeout and party pan menus are also available. It gives the phone number, 808-739-3939, and the website, but no pre-order cutoff date. Tax is extra, and credit cards carry a 3% charge.
The dine-in side is stricter. Reservations go through email or that same phone number, every booking needs a credit card on file, and cancelling less than two days before Nov. 26 or not showing up costs $125 for a party of up to five, more for larger groups. Parties of six or more get an 18% service charge.
The Hyatt buffet adds half price for kids 6 to 12 and $5.99 for 5 and under, says the kamaʻāina discount does not apply to holiday menus, and adds a 20% service charge for parties of six or more, or five or more asking for separate checks. At 100 Sails, children 6 to 10 are $54.50 at dinner and $55.50 at brunch, and the menus say price and menu are subject to change.
Basalt’s plate is turkey breast, ham, mashed potatoes, focaccia stuffing, pineapple casserole, roasted root vegetables, gravy and cranberry sauce, marked “Limited Availability, while supplies last.” Its menu image doesn’t say whether the plate comes to go.
And Zippy’s: the half turkey package serves four, costs $124.95 online through Nov. 22 and $129.95 by store or phone from Nov. 23 until sold out, with pickup Nov. 25 (10 am–6 pm) or Nov. 26 (7 am–2 pm). Zippy’s says items and prices vary by location, and tells you to allow 1 to 1½ hours of preparation.
What we would do
If our stay overlapped Thanksgiving, we would pre-order two of Side Street Inn’s $40 plates. That’s $80 before tax and the card charge, for two people.
The reasons are boring, which is how we like them. The restaurant is a short walk from Hokulani Waikiki, our usual base. Pickup opens at 11:30 am, so we could walk over in the early afternoon, carry the bag back, and be eating on the sofa by 2 pm with the windows open, which is our normal dinner hour anyway. Nobody watches a 90-minute clock, and nobody risks a $125 no-show fee because one of us decided to nap.
We have eaten Side Street Inn’s pork chops at its other locations over the years, but we have not been to the Beach Walk location yet, and we have not tried this turkey plate. So the turkey is reported rather than field-tested. For drinks, a bottle of California Chardonnay from Longs feels right with gravy, and a cold IPA covers the mac salad.
Zippy’s is the better deal on paper. $124.95 split four ways is about $31 a serving, and a half turkey would cover a second night. But the Zippy’s we would use is the Kapahulu store, a ride away for us, and our suite’s kitchen is a two-burner induction top and a microwave with a convection mode. Add the ride there and an hour or more of reheating a 5- to 6-pound half turkey, and it’s more work than we want on a holiday. If you have a car and a condo with a real oven, it’s hard to beat.
If you want to sit down, we would book now rather than gamble that day. Basalt’s $42 plate is the one that makes sense for two people who don’t want a buffet. Families who want the full spread with crab legs and carved prime rib should look at the Hyatt or 100 Sails. At the Hyatt, we’d take the 1:30 pm seating if it’s still open. That’s the one we’d pick if we were the buffet type, because it’s the closest to our idea of dinner time.
Before you plan around this
- Prices and times above come from each restaurant’s own Thanksgiving page or menu image, checked Nov. 4, 2026. Several are posted only as images or PDFs, and 100 Sails and the Hyatt both say prices and menus can change without notice.
- Side Street Inn posts no pre-order deadline and says quantities are limited. Call early rather than assuming you can walk in on Thursday.
- We did not check the other five Waikiki entries (Deck, Hilton Waikīkī Beach, Hy’s, Kulu Kulu, ʻOlili). Their details are on the posts linked from the magazine’s list, and the list is still growing.
- Basalt’s regular bar happy hour is 2–5 pm, according to its website. Its Thanksgiving image doesn’t say whether that runs on the holiday.
A turkey plate you can carry back to the room counts as a full Thanksgiving in our book.
