L&L Drive-Inn

A little hole in the wall. The food is tasty and inexpensive. Typical HI BBQ fare. The bowls good for a light lunch.

Definitely one of the worst L&Ls I’ve been to. Ordered a medium mochiko chicken tray from their catering menu. The chicken was ready half an hour after the time set for pick up and the chicken lay on a bed of chopped lettuce that occupied half the space in the tray. Chicken tasted good, so that’s why I gave a 2 star rating. It is very deceitful to charge $ 40 for half a tray of lettuce and half a tray of chicken. Will not go here again.

L and L food is pretty much the same no matter which branch you go to. But it’s the variety of food and the service that makes or breaks and L and L restaurant. This restaurant does not make it on both counts! For example, the breakfast selection… There are two. I kid you not, there are only two offerings and they do not allow variations on the items. For example there are five toppings for omelette. However if you want two toppings, you need to pay 50% more! Crazy. The lady who took our order never once smiled and there was no one behind us or in front of us anywhere!

I came here a couple times because I think their chicken katsu plate is reasonably priced and they give a lot. But as for this location, I find it disgusting. The cashier lady does not greet you or say thank you at all; I wasn’t too bothered by it. But what did bother me was how much she was coughing. I stopped at this location about 2 – 3 months ago and the lady had a chronic cough, and now a few months later and it’s still there?! That’s very unsanitary having a sick person handling food. Although she is not directly touching the food, germs do spread and bacteria from the outside of the take out box can travel into the food. Not coming back here again until she gets all better.

Simply probably one of the worst L&L restaurants on oahu. The lady who’s always there has a chronic cough (I live nearby so been there numerous times over the years). She has an attitude (which she tries to hide at no avail). And the cold ginger chicken is old & mushy!
The only plus is their mini is larger than other L&L’s, but so what if its coughd on & mushy! …oh wells, such is life.

The food is up to the standard of any L and L on the island with the exception of the Liliha location. You get the portion size you expect. The place is clean with fans to quickly get rid of any warm air. By biggest gripe is the service at times. Yesterday I went in around 5;15 pm on a Saturday. No one was at the counter and I called out for someone several times as I hear lots of chatter in the back. The female counter person, says thank you every time but doesn’t bring any type of warmth behind it which makes her act of kindness meaningless. Is she miserable? Maybe. On this visit she asked me three different times if my order was to go. I clearly said «eat here» twice. Why so many times? After placing my order I asked for a few napkins so I could clean up a spill outside. I wanted them right away to take care of the spill while I waited. When I asked a second time for napkins she says «I put in bag.» (with order) When I asked again she gave me a nasty look. But why I ask? Moral of this post. Pay attention to what your customers are asking instead of allowing your mind to run on autopilot. You can’t be a sobby robot. That being said, One Plus One is right now the street. I usually go there because of the kind service, the fact that there is a bathroom available (with key) and the ice cold water jug that is available for all. I work in the next building over and could have become a regular at this place had it not been for the service.

I agree with the other one-​star ratings for this place. The customer service here is bad! The cashier lady messed up my friend’s order. She then tried to argue with my friend that the wrong food she brought out was what he ordered.
I really don’t like to complain and would have eaten my friend’s wrong order (cause I don’t like wasted food). However, her attitude prompted us to request the correct order.
Well, its good thing there are other L&L locations around the island, so I don’t have to come back to this location again.

The parking here on a Friday night is okay. You should be able to find parking around here regardless. The place is set on the corner next to a baseball field. The place isn’t that bad and it has enough tables to sit at. Should do some organizing around here though. The workers here need to smile more :)
The food wasn’t that bad, just mediocre like most L&L places. What was a surprise to me was the garlic ahi going for around $ 5 for a mini but still making me full and I’m 175 lbs. I didn’t even eat the rice because I’m staying away from it and it still made me full. My GF got the cheeseburger and she said it was okay. She wishes there were stuff in it besides just cheese but eh it was cheap and NOT McDonalds. The egg rolls were super hot even though I finished scarfing down my mini garlic ahi. The egg rolls were perfectly cooked none the less. Not made fresh like mama’s but it will do for a random night here. We just wished there was vinegar or sweet and sour sauce to go with it.
This place is okay. If you want a local favorite here for cheap and don’t really care too much for quality as long as the food is edible and won’t make you sick, this place is good just for that.

Service SUCKS. Their sauces are different than the norm as well. Do yourself a favor and go to another one to save the disappointment.

The service here is horrible. As soon as my mom & I came through the door, just looks our way (not even a single «hello» or «welcome» as I would expect walking into any business). Then as we were paying, the lady tosses the pen and receipt down to sign. How rude! The two customers behind us got the same type of unpleasant service. Never coming back to this L&L location.

Came here for breakfast one Monday morning — The Nook Neighborhood Bistro which we wanted to go to was closed because it was a Monday. We Unilocaled to see what else was open in the neighborhood this early in the morning and it turned out L&L was the place to go. I had the mochiko chicken. Mochiko chicken is definitely one of those local dishes that you don’t see on the mainland much so I decided to get that since I was going back to the mainland that same day. I liked their mochiko chicken but the macaroni salad was a little lame — flavorless. Small place with a number of booths to sit in. Right across the street from the old Stadium Park. We walked here so I don’t know/​remember what the parking situation is — all I know is around the Stadium park there is lots of metered parking. You order at the counter, take a seat and get your food when they shout out that it is ready. That’s about all the service you’ll get at this joint. Still, it has the standard L&L menu. Maybe one day I’ll try their hyped up ramen burger.

Speed of service is good food temperature was perfect. Ordered hamburger steak it wasn’t that great so I was kind of bummed. It got busy and they were still pretty quick. I feel like i should’ve ordered breakfast or chicken.

Should have left from the start. A bird almost flew into me, the cashier was on the phone while I was ready to order, she was also coughing all over the place. Just gross

Their chicken katsu sucks. There isn’t any meat inside, just fried pieces of fat. I ordered take-​out, that was fast.
do not come here.

I was attending a small party with a few buddies of mine, as we hardly get to see each other now days…
You know how it goes… some people get married, then have kids… and the next thing you know, it becomes difficult to see each other but once a year.
Since last year, we’ve been trying to make it a point to have some kind of gathering at least once a year (to see each other), so today was the day of our little get together.
I was planning on making some BBQ chicken to grill, but since I’ve been on the road a lot lately, it became clear I was not gonna have enough time to defrost & marinade some chicken, so the next best thing is to buy stuff.
After planning our get together, I found a lot of the guys were gonna bring some meat product, so I decided to bring the starch, burgers, & hotdogs.
Yeah, I can cook rice, but that would be too easy, so I decided to bring some Chow Mein Noodles. Can I make that? Well… maybe? But again, I really don’t have the time, so this is where L & L Hawaiian Barbecue comes into play.
I went to the L & L that was closest to my office (easy access), and went into the little restaurant. L & L is known for their plate lunches, but they also do catering too!
L & L has all types of dishes for catering like — Chicken dishes, Beef dishes, & Seafood dishes like (Shrimp & Fish).
They also offer side order dishes like — Vegetable Chop Suey, Fried Rice, Eggplant in Garlic Sauce, Steamed Rice, Macaroni Salad, Chow Mein Noodles, Spam Musubi’s, & Katsu/​Chicken Musubi too.
Price range for their food can be anywhere from $ 71.99 for a (Large Pan) of some Beef Dish, to as low as $ 20.99 for a side dish (Small Pan). For me, I ordered a (Medium Pan) of Chow Mein Noodles for $ 34.54 (with tax), not bad as the clerk told me it can easily feed about 15 people.
I placed my order ahead of time like on Monday, and I must say the clerk was very helpful. I picked up my noodles today (Saturday), and when I told the clerk when I would come back to their restaurant to pick up the noodles, I told her I’d be back at 3:15 PM on Saturday… sure enough when I walked in today, they had my order ready to go (on time). How’s that for great service!
How was the grub… well, I can tell you folks… the medium pan of Chow Mein Noodles was a MOUND of food! It surely could have fed 25 people easily! When I picked up the noodles, it was piping hot! It was tasty, and the perfect side dish to compliment the other food we had at the party.
Thanks L & L for making it easy on me! If I every have a need to pick up food for another party, L & L is a great place to go for your catering needs!

I like it here, but I had to think twice about the 4 stars only because their plate lunches are now running just under $ 10.00 each. Sure minis are cheaper, but their price menu is looking more & more like Zippys lately.

Trying not to judge the book by its cover, we decided to eat here anyway. We didn’t feel so good about this place from the moment we saw the outside. I came here because it was the nearest L&L we can find in the area and I thought all L&L’s were the same. Well, not this one! Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Look at the ratings again. From all the news about the Saimin or Ramen Burger I decided to try L&L’s first. I came here with full anticipation that it wouldn’t be bad and if worse comes to worse it will lack something. Sure as heck it lacked something.
Customer Service
This location lacked customer service. Yes, it’s a fast food joint and what more customer service can you get? That’s what I asked myself. When taking our order the lady didn’t understand what we were talking about. We asked for a specific burger not to have certain things on it and the lady looked at us like she was confused and at the same time, she kept coughing at us. She was not friendly at all.
Cleanliness
Tables were not cleaned from the moment we walked in and the counters needed to be wiped. There were still left over burger wrappers, drink cups on the tables. We had to wipe our table, seats and use our own napkins. Yes, they were definitely cheap on the napkins.
Food
My friend ordered a burger and again requested for certain things not to include in his burger. Listening is definitely not a factor in their customer service. That was a lost cause. Now, I don’t know if the L&L Ramen Burger was suppose to lack taste, but it looked better in photos. It seems mine was missing the lettuce and lack of sauce. One thing is for sure, both ramen patties were super thick and the meat was super thin and small.
The verdict, I might have to give another location a try, because L&L is normally a good place to eat but certainly not this location. I wish I didn’t have to give one star.

Seafood combo with BBQ chicken — a great combination of seafood and chicken! Love this option! It’s in walking distance from my apartment, so it is quite convenient to go to.

I am not completely sure how we ended up here. On rare days, when my wife has a day off in the middle of the week, we usually try to have a nice lunch together somewhere. The Mexican place we planned on had no parking. Then we got caught in traffic and once I escaped that, all we could find were JIB’s, Zippy’s, Pizza Huts, Taco Bell’s and more places that didn’t have parking… grrr…and we were running out of time and some of the lunch places close at 2:00pm.
Stressed Out: Wife was starving and yelled out L & L !! So L & L it was. Haven’t been in one of these for about 10 years and my vision of having a huge vegetarian mega burrito was dying fast. This can’t be happening to me.
Reality: OMG! You’ve heard about «dive» bars. Well, this is a dive L & L !! And worst of all I knew there wasn’t anything here that was vegetarian friendly.
Quit whining: Enough complaining. Sometimes a «dive» is all you need if the food is cheap and A-​OK. So what if the A/​C unit is covered with aluminum foil and the ceiling fan is turning slowly even though it was not on. A/​C was coming from somewhere. All the other customers seemed as happy as can be. My wife was happy with her fish mini plate. I was surprised with my «healthy option plate» 374 calories according to the sign.
Healthy plate: Plate with 1 scoop brown rice. Huge salad that filled the plate and the lettuce was fresh, crisp and clean. Salad and rice were good! Two huge pieces of barbecue chicken. It was good too and not deep fried.
Special Customer: So as I’m eating I see a Taxi pull up in the parking lot. This guy gets out and I see him tipping the driver. He comes rushing into the L & L and breathlessly orders the regular beef stew plate, two orders of fries and a large regular Dr. Pepper. He proceeds to get some ketchup and mixes in some black pepper. He then gets some small paper cups and prepares those with soy sauce. Then he goes back to pay the lady.
This young gentleman looked like he was preparing to have the meal of a lifetime! You know what? I bet if you asked this man to rate this L & L, he would have given it a full 5 stars. Perhaps he knows something that I don’t.
I’m sticking with 3 stars though.

I decided that I didn’t want to leave Hawaii without trying a classic local plate lunch, so I decided to eat at L&L Drive-​Inn. This is not fancy. The interior is a little bit shabby and doesn’t have many decorations, but it seemed clean enough. We dropped by for a late dinner, so the place was almost empty. I ordered the «healthy» plate option, which included garlic breaded shrimp, brown rice, and salad.
(+) The portions are generous. We ordered the «small» sizes and they are MORE than enough to fill you up. I ate until I was stuffed and then could still eat the rest for a filling lunch the next day!
(+) There’s a healthy pescetarian option! A lot of the drive-​in places don’t have menus that are friendly to people who don’t eat meat. I was very satisfied with this option at L&L.
(+) The lettuce leaves in my salad were very fresh.
(+) There were a LOT of pieces of shrimp! No scrimping on the shrimp.
(-) The food was kind of tasteless. Of course, it was relatively healthy and I did not expect to have brown rice and salad that were bursting with flavor. My main complaint is with the shrimp itself. Yes, it had a garlic flavor, but I feel like it could have been a lot better. I had to psych myself up to eat it and enjoy it. I always ate the shrimp with a forkful of brown rice to detract attention from the shrimp.
(-) Service was neutral. This isn’t exactly a complaint, but I think establishments should all strive to have excellent customer service with a smile.
I gave the Drive-​Inn three stars because it was certainly fine (especially for the price and getting that authentic Hawaiian food experience), but I’m not really a «fan.» If I’m ever back in the area, I’m sure I’ll still drop by here, though. It’s fun to eat like the locals every once in a while!