April 15, 2026
Honolulu Coffee Guide: 13 Specialty Shops, Roasters, and Cafes
Honolulu coffee runs across two registers at the same time. The Kaimuki bench, where neighborhood regulars settle in for a Saudi cardamom pour or a matcha that the owner whisks at the bar. And the downtown corridor through Fort Street Mall and Waimanu, where Drip Studio HNL and Café VNTG hold the contemporary specialty register for a city that has never been in a hurry. Coffee here grows on the islands. Kona, Kau, Maui. Most cafes pour something local alongside imports from Ethiopia and Yemen. The result is a small city that drinks more carefully than its population would suggest.
The Pulled directory tracks 110 specialty cafes across Honolulu. Below are ten with the editorial detail that makes the difference between a list and a guide.
Mirage Art and Coffee
1425 10th Avenue, Honolulu, 96816
Mirage Art and Coffee sits at 1425 10th Avenue in Kaimuki, a Honolulu coffee shop and art gallery built around Arabian coffee tradition. The bar pulls Saudi coffee from a dallah with cardamom, Turkish coffee, and Ethiopian preparations alongside espresso and the house Honey Rose Latte. The room is dense with art and runs warm. Saturdays bring belly dancing, live music, paint nights, and open mic. The owner is around, eccentric in the way good Kaimuki regulars are eccentric, and will tell you about the cardamom if you let her. Hours run Tuesday through Saturday only, 9 to 3. Mornings pull Kaimuki regulars who treat the place as their living room, art crowd from the gallery side, and visitors who came for one Saudi coffee and walked out with a print. Order the Saudi coffee in the dallah if you want the Mirage version of mornings. Order the Honey Rose Latte and stay through a Saturday set if you came for Kaimuki and want the room at full volume.
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Neko Koneko Cafe
1658 Liliha Street
Neko Koneko Cafe sits at 1658 Liliha Street in Honolulu, a Japanese-inspired coffee shop closer to Kuakini than to Liliha proper, with a tiny garden out front and cat art on every available surface. The room runs cozy and unhurried. Manga books fill a shelf for anyone settling in. The menu skews adventurous: hojicha latte sweetened with agave on oat milk, black sesame cold brew latte, toasted coconut coffee, melon drinks that taste like Melona ice cream, matcha marble pound cake the staff will toast for you on request. Mornings pull a steady mix of Liliha regulars, Honolulu Magazine readers who came for the Instagram and stayed for the menu, and Kuakini hospital workers on coffee breaks. Service is attentive without being chatty. Drinks run pricey and arrive worth it. Order the hojicha latte if you want what the regulars order. Order a black sesame cold brew and the matcha pound cake if you came for the room and want a reason to stay.
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Junbi
2201 Kalākaua Avenue, Honolulu, 96815
Junbi sits at Royal Hawaiian Center on Kalakaua, the California matcha brand's first Hawaii outpost in a small Building C storefront. The program is matcha forward and unapologetic about it: ceremonial-grade Daily and the higher Reiwa tier, served straight, in lattes, in cold brew, and in flavored variations including strawberry, guava, mango, and the Dirty Matcha that adds an espresso shot. Hawaii-exclusive collaborations bring in local produce when it is in season. The line moves Waikiki-fast. The crowd is a mix of visitors who walked over from the Royal Hawaiian and locals who drove in for the matcha specifically. It is open until 9pm, which makes it one of the few real after-dinner matcha options in town. Order the matcha cold brew if you want pure matcha without the dairy. Order the Dirty Matcha if you want the full crossover, espresso and ceremonial grade in one cup.
Drip Studio HNL
1114 Fort Street Mall, Honolulu, 96813
Drip Studio HNL sits at the mauka end of Fort Street Mall in downtown Honolulu, the kind of address where lunchtime office workers and pour over regulars share a counter. Owners Pohaku and Kelsie Mercado-Uehara built the program around a rotating multi-roaster bean bar, with beans from Rose Coffee Roasters in Switzerland, Portland Ca Phe in Oregon, and White Nene on Hawaii Island, plus their own small batch roasts. Pohaku keeps a coffee bible at the counter listing forty-plus single origins he is in conversation with at any moment. Toasts are sourdough, made in-house. Pastries are baked on site. The crowd splits between downtown professionals on a tight clock and people who came specifically to ask what is on the bar today. Order the rotating pour over and let the barista pick if you trust the room. Order an espresso and a sourdough toast if you came to work for an hour.
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Mango Mango Desert
1450 Ala Moana Boulevard
Mango Mango Dessert sits at Ala Moana Center on the third floor, a Hong Kong-style dessert shop that opened in New York's Chinatown in 2013 and grew into the global expansion that brought it to Honolulu. The program is fresh-fruit dessert in the Hong Kong tradition: mango sago with pomelo, mango sticky rice, mille crepe cakes, durian bowls, and a drink menu that runs through fruit teas, smoothies, and milk teas. The Ala Moana location runs Mango Sticky Rice and Man-Coco Sticky as menu exclusives, both built on Thai sweet rice steamed with pandan. The crowd is mall foot traffic, post-shopping families, and the late-afternoon group that came to Ala Moana specifically for dessert. Order the mango pomelo sago if you want to understand why the shop has the name it does. Order the mango sticky rice if you came at the Ala Moana location for the version you cannot get elsewhere.
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Daily Whisk Matcha
1114 11th Avenue, Honolulu, 96816
Daily Whisk Matcha lives inside Ten Tomorrow, a small boutique on 11th Avenue in Kaimuki. The cafe is a counter and a few seats out front. Matcha is the program and the discipline. Drinks are whisked to order with a chasen, the bamboo whisk used in the Japanese tea ceremony, using Uji-sourced organic matcha. The matcha-cano is the unsweetened version, an Americano-shaped argument for what good matcha tastes like without sugar. The lilikoi soda and the chilly matcha lemonade run lighter. Coffee comes from Tradition Coffee Roasters, treated as a side conversation, not the main one. Mornings draw the Kaimuki regulars who walked over and the boutique's customers who stayed longer than they meant to. Order the matcha-cano if you want to taste matcha without the milk and the syrup getting in the way. Order the lilikoi soda if it is hot out and you want something brighter.
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Talk Kaimuki
3601 Waialae Avenue, Honolulu, 96816
Talk Kaimuki sits at the Waialae and 12th Avenue intersection, in the 3,600-square-foot space that Liz Schwartz opened as Coffee Talk in 1995 and rebuilt during the pandemic into the current dual-program room. Coffee runs by day. Cocktails run Thursday through Sunday nights. Coffee is Sumatran-forward, dark and full, and the house Haupia Latte uses coconut milk in a way that has earned regular orders for years. Pastries are the second program: butter mochi, almond croissants, the Kaimuki standards. By 4pm the room flips. The cocktail list runs twelve originals on the first page. The crowd shifts from laptops and parents to neighbors on a date. It is one of the few rooms in Honolulu that holds two distinct moods on the same lease. Order the Haupia Latte and a butter mochi if you came at 9am. Order an espresso martini after 7pm if you came at the other end of the day.
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Café VNTG
875 Waimanu Street, Honolulu, 96813
Cafe VNTG sits inside a vintage furniture warehouse on Waimanu Street in Kakaako, a block from the SALT block and a short walk from the Ward Whole Foods. Husband-and-wife owners Alexandro and Jennifer Viriato built the cafe along one wall of their showroom, which means you order an espresso while shelves of mid century chairs rise to the ceiling behind you. The drink program leans Brazilian. The Vintage Matcha runs lavender and cold foam. The Brazilian House Cold Brew is the owners' tribute to home, and the pao de queijo comes warm. Mornings draw the Kakaako condo crowd. Evenings turn into open mics and dance classes. It is one of the few places in town where a coffee stop becomes an hour you did not plan for. Order the Honolulu Fog if you want Earl Grey done right. Order the pao de queijo and a Brazilian House Cold Brew if you want the cafe at its most itself.
Bean About Town
3538 Waialae Avenue, Honolulu, 96816
Bean About Town sits on Waialae in Kaimuki, two doors from the neighborhood's Saturday morning rhythm of farmers market traffic and dog walkers. Founder Oliver Vetter brought the tuk-tuk concept over from London in 2005 and put down roots here, roasting in small batches in a European register. The Kaimuki bar runs the house roasts and a 100% Kona program that includes the SL34 and Red Bourbon lots when they are in season. Espresso pulls clean. Pour overs come in proper cups, not paper. Regulars cycle through between 7 and 10, mostly people who live within five blocks and have opinions about the weekly bean rotation. Pastries come from local bakers and disappear by midday. Order the flat white if you want to taste what Vetter is actually after with the house roast. Order a Kona pour over if you want to understand why Hawaiian coffee is worth the price.
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Mr. Tea
909 Kapiolani Boulevard
Mr. Tea Cafe sits on Kapiolani Boulevard in Kakaako, in a corner storefront on the makai side of Ala Moana Boulevard, with a second location at the SALT block a few minutes away. The shop has been at this address since July 2014, locally owned, and the boba program reflects the run time. Pearls are cooked in small batches with 100% cane sugar and Taiwanese honey, in a daily rotation that the staff keeps tight. The menu runs through milk teas, iced teas, smoothies, specialty teas, and a small coffee program for people who walked in with a different mood. The crowd is Kakaako condo regulars, Ala Moana office workers on a quick break, and the after-school cycle. Order the bubble milk tea if you want the version that the shop built itself on. Order the brown sugar milk tea with the honey-cane boba if you want the small batch program at its most apparent.
Honolulu rewards a slow walk through Kaimuki on a Saturday morning. Mirage in the gallery, Daily Whisk on 11th Avenue, Bean About Town on Waialae, then the bus down to Kapiolani for Mr. Tea. Three or four stops in a half day, all within Pulled's check-in radius.
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