City Guides›Kailua-Kona›HiCO Hawaiian Coffee

HiCO Hawaiian Coffee

74-5599 Pawai Place, Kailua-Kona, 96740

SPECIALTY

HiCO Hawaiian Coffee is a specialty coffee shop located in Kailua-Kona, HI. Check in here with the Pulled Coffee app to earn real cash rewards. Specialty shops count toward all challenges including Pulled 50, Pulled 100, and Pulled 300.

HiCO sits in downtown Kailua-Kona, walking distance from the seawall, a flagship for a small Hawaiian chain that also operates in Kealakekua and Waikoloa Village. The lineup is 100% Hawaiian, sourced from growers across the islands, and the menu leans into local ingredients in ways most Kona cafes do not. The ube latte is the drink everyone orders, made with Big Island ube and a syrup the cafe produces in house. There is also an ube sweet cream cold brew, a Maui lavender latte, and a loaded Spam musubi that only this location runs. The room is bright, the staff knows the regulars, and there is a run club that meets out of the cafe. Order the ube latte if you want the drink that put HiCO on the map. Order the Spam musubi and a cold brew if you want the local breakfast in two hands.

About Kailua-Kona

Kailua-Kona coffee starts with the trees. The Kona coffee belt runs along the Mamalahoa Highway above town, and most cafes here pour something grown within ten miles of the bar. Kona Coffee and Tea on Palani Road is the flagship for the Bolton family operation, which began in 1998 with twenty acres planted on a former cattle ranch above Holualoa. The cafe pours only the family's coffee, grown on a single estate and roasted in small batches a few miles from where you are sitting. HiCO Hawaiian Coffee runs a 100% Hawaiian program in downtown Kailua-Kona, walking distance from the seawall, with sister cafes in Kealakekua and Waikoloa Village.

The neighborhood map is small. Alii Drive holds Green Flash Coffee, family-owned and small enough to run a one-group-at-a-time interior policy, with picnic tables out front. Kaiwi Street runs Malama Coffee, the drive-through window that opens at 6:30 in the morning and serves a local line. Hanama Place covers Herbivores, a walk-up window in the middle of a parking lot a few blocks off Palani that runs a fully plant-based kitchen. Palani Road also holds Waimea Coffee Co at PACIFIC 19, the satellite of the long-running Waimea Coffee Company that pours from a trailer on the renovated boutique hotel property.

Kailua-Kona is small and the specialty network reflects that. Around 15 active rooms, most within a few minutes of downtown, most pouring Hawaiian beans. The result is a tightly drawn local circuit that mostly skips the visitor-volume cafes in favor of operations that run on Kona-grown coffee.