Cinnamon’s Restaurant

So it’s been over a year since I first came here. I’m a regular now! I’d like to tell you to order what people recommend on Unilocal.Don’t go extra fancy and order something random on your first time. The guava pancakes are my favorite but I order something like the cinnamon roll (which no doesn’t compare to cinnabons but the macadamia one to me is delicious.) on the side to balance out the sweetness. the service is mediocre but they give me what I want and need and leave me alone I’m not that needy. It’s kind of pricey but you’re in Kailua and in Hawaii. The coffee isn’t Starbucks but wakes you up and you get refills. The hot chocolate is delicious and comes at a decent temperature. The apple cinnamon pancakes are yum! Enjoy. It really is a great place!

Oh my flipping pancakes! What a great find. Been wanting to come here for ages but finally got to on my last visit to attend a wedding and visit family. Of course there is a wait for this place but if you come early enough the wait can be avoided. We came pretty early and we were seated promptly and allowed to browse the menu.
I wanted to try both the crab Benedict and the kalua pork Benedict and could decide. Waitress was nice enough to ask the cook if I could do one of both, score! Both CRAB BENEDICT KALUA PORK BENEDICT were really good. Both were different in their own way but I preferred the crab Benedict if I had to choose one. Kalua pork was not too salty and has the right amount of pork ratio. Crab Benedict had a good amount of crab and since I prefer seafood I would naturally go for this one. 5 stars****
GUAVA CHIFFON PANCAKES sooo friggin yummy. Wasn’t too sweet and had a little sour kick to it. In all honesty I think I prefer these pancakes over boots and kimos even though I love boots and kimos sauce. The pancake here’s texture is better definitely more fluffy. 4 ½ stars***
FIESTA OMELETTE consisted of tomatoes, green chili, black olives, jack cheese and chicken. Yummy! Full of flavor and a good portion size. 4 ½ stars**
Service wasn’t too bad. Basic service provided given the business of this restaurant. We got in and out within an hour ½. But as we were leaving it go extremely busy, hate to be waiting around during peak hours.
Highly recommended place to try one on the island, and highly recommended items to try are the Kalua pork Benedict, crab Benedict, guava chiffon pancakes, and fiesta omelette.

After all of these years, after all of the days we wanted to come here but it was closed, we made it. Walking the Lighthouse Trail left us wanting to gain back some of those calories, so I called Cinnamon’s to place a reservation 30 minutes after its opening. Our group of 8 arrived and we sat outside in the open area surrounded by other businesses. It felt like we were eating at a picnic, sitting on plastic chairs by a table with a decorative cover.
I annihilated the Hawaiian omelette because I love eggs, and real Hawaiian food is scarce in Dallas. It was enormous and filled throughout, the way I like my eggs. I don’t like traditional omelettes that are folded over meat, so this one touched my inner child soul, the fat local kid that doesn’t care about what she looks like, only about how good the thing she’s eating is. Basically chopped up Laulau and tomatoes in eggs, with ketchup and rice (naturally), is something I feel like you can only enjoy if you know the island way.
The dish to impress your visitors though are the Guava pancakes. These are pancakes that you let your sister order, then steal what’s left so you don’t feel absolutely guilty about the amount you have taken in. They are fabulous, especially if you’re someone that loves guava, be it guava juice, jelly, anything guava. The sauce completely covers the pancakes, sitting bright pink and pretty, but it is surprisingly not exceedingly sweet. Okay, it’ll rot your teeth off, but, indulge every once in a while, right?
This is like a special occasion breakfast place to me, when you’ve just had too much McDonald’s spam and rice, and you want some good sit down food. Drive out here after a hike and make it a delicious morning.

Meh, underwhelming but edible.
I had the Kalua Benedict, and wasn’t blown away. Not enough sauce (which also tasted pre-​made) and the pork was on the dry side. All on top of a soggy muffin. Shame. It could be so good.
The waitresses were… just bizarre. A bossy lady at the check-​in (outside) who barks at her fellow employees isn’t a great mood setter. Our service was reasonably friendly and the coffee unremarkably bland. When the sign says «best coffee on the island» I always wonder what island they’re referring to? Must be some other island with really awful coffee.
Not to mention the toilets which are shared amongst all business… gross.
So, as long as you’re hungry, not fussy, and just in need of a quick fix, go. If you’re not, find something better.

My first time visit was a very positive one. A 10:30 am Thursday visit was ideal. Easily found a parking space outside (thank you parking gods!) and it was on, y a few minutes wait, which we killed by browsing the nearby stores. Giving us a pager allowed us the freedom to roam!
My mom and I ordered a small portion of the Spanish frittata (perfect for lighter appetites!) with buttermilk pancakes and the homemade corned beef hash with guava chiffon pancakes. I’m not a fan of super sugary sweet syrups and was really pleased the guava was real (the guava flavor shines) and not sickly sweet. Next time I would still order the guava syrup on the side. I had more than enough syrup for mom to use on her pancakes. Delicious!
The portion size of the corned beef hash was perfect for me. Not too salty and quite tasty. The frittata had a good flavor thanks to the feta cheese and pesto. Overall, we loved our meal. The atmosphere inside was noisy but comfortable. It was a treat to drive to Kailua and can’t wait to try the Ilikai location! This is going to be one of our favorite breakfast spots!

Came here because my favorite spot was closed. Wait was absolutely ridiculous. I am a devoted foodie and will wait for a restaurant whom is well deserving. Took our items to go.
Everything sweet here, is WAAAAYYY TOO SWEET. the cinnamon roll, the carrot cake pancakes. To the point it is inedible. Couple bites and over it.
The coffee isn’t any good. Best get some from Starbucks.
If you must, get the Kalua pork Benedict. Not too bad when you are hungry!

Can’t win them all. We sat down and was quickly sat; which was nice. Had a friendly server and a nice table. Ordered quickly (within 5 minutes of sitting), food came out 5 minutes later…
I like quick service at times, but 5 minutes? Food was obviously cooked prior and everything was cold and tasted old. Ate, left a nice tip and won’t return.
Like I said, you can’t win them all. Maybe it was just our turn to get the crap end of the stick. Oh well, on to the next!

A very good breakfast place, and must try if in East Oahu (Kailua, Kaneohe). They have metered parking so make sure to bring coins! Came on a Tuesday morning with a half hour wait, but since the service was very nice, I was forgiving for the wait.
Food here was good. My favorite was their Guava Pancakes– fluffy with great guava syrup all over it. The red velvet pancakes were also very good, but the second layer of pancakes was a little dry and needed to add a small bit of their maple syrup to it which fixed it. I personally like my red velvet more chocolatey than cream cheese heavy, so this one was perfect. We also got their Kalua Pork Eggs Benedict which was good too but not as special/​amazing. We also tried their cinnamon roll with Mac nuts as well, which was good but also not spectacular.
Overall very good food with stars being their pancakes. Would be 5-​stars, but the price is pretty steep for what you get for the rest of their non-​pancake foods.

Must go brunch joint if you are cruising around the Kailua area. There will likely be a wait whatever time you go especially on weekends. Thankfully there are a few souvenir shops and boutiques in the area so that will keep you busy and they will buzz you when it’s time. I ordered a half order of eggs benny which came with taters and a friend ordered the french toast with some sort of guava syrup. Wow, that was fantastic! I was kind of wishing I had ordered that but the benny was just as good. I ordered the version with their homemade crabcake… party in my mouth. There’s patio seating so it’s fun on a pretty day. Which is basically every day when you are in Hawaii.

We have been hearing about this place as the go-​to breakfast spot since we moved to the island a few years ago. Finally this weekend we were on the right side of the island at the right time to go check this place out. The wait was pretty long, about 30 mins. So worth it though!
The service is super friendly. The waitress gave us her recommendations for what we should try. Hubby has the skillet breakfast and it was a pile of food if I ever saw one! I had the French toast, yum! Our friends had the loco moco and red velvet pancakes.
EVERYTHING WAS AMAZING! I’m so sad that we waited so long to try this place out. Good food, good service, good atmosphere.

We do not understanding the hype for this place! We were very excited to try a Mom & Pop establishment with a long Hawaii history, and due to good Unilocal & «The Blue Book» reviews. Unfortunately we were terribly disappointed with the quality of food there. One plus, was the great service, warm welcome, & very helpful hostesses & wait staff.
The food: nearly inedible. Rubbery omelet, dark brown, wrinkled, dried-​out home fries that I’m certain were yesterday’s that had barely been rewarmed (then sprinkled with fresh green onion). See picture.
Next, their infamous cinnamon roll was a diabetic mess! Perhaps edible if it wasn’t covered in 1/​3″ inch (literally) of tasteless, sweet, syrupy, powdered sugared goo! It’s just too ridiculously sweet (and I’m a Dessert-​A-​Holic)! If I was FORCED to eat one again; I’d order it without the tasteless over-​served goo & dip it lightly in the delicious coconut cream provided on the table. See pictures.

Love pancakes but every time you try to make it they come out looking like this?
*Show image of a 30 something female vigorously mixing a bowl of flour with a wooden spoon, flour spraying everywhere, a dozen dirty mixing bowls on the counter. Cut to lumpy, half cooked pancakes half out of the pan.
Well now with this exciting TV offer you can have perfect pancakes every time!
Straight from Cinnamon’s comes pancakes from a box. Just add water and out pops perfect pancakes.
So they taste like preservatives and cardboard. Looks are more important than taste and doesn’t your family deserve the best?
And for your kids, we have an assortment of super sugary, amazingly sweet sauces to bathe their pancakes in. Macadamia, lilikoi, coconut. They will be running around the house for hours!
But wait, if you act right now, we’ll throw in a mountain of our famous, day old, rubbery country potatoes. Skin on and wonderfully chewy, these are sure to be a hit with fido!
We’re not done yet. As a special gift, we’ll add packaged hollandaise sauce for all your Benedict needs. Add water, a squeeze of ten lemons and some vinegar, serve cold, and you’ll be bringing expressions to your family’s face immediately!
If you act in the next 60 seconds, we’ll throw in our cookbook «How to Cook Eggs». In it you’ll learn that over easy, over medium and over well all mean the same thing, barely cooked runny whites. You’ll also learn that omelets should be stuffed full of liquid exuding veg like mushrooms and tomatoes so your guest can enjoy them sitting in a puddle! This book is amazing!
Call us crazy but mention «Holy $h1t» and we’ll throw in not one but three microwave ovens to heat up all your food!
What are you waiting for? This TV offer is just for a limited time as we are actively advertising in Japan and will soon be moving where people only take pictures of food, not eat it! So act fast and order today!

Best place to get breakfast/​brunch at if you’re in Kailua. There’s usually about a 20 – 40 minutes wait on the weekend but well worth it. They provide one of the buzzer for you. Portions are huge and the staff are awesome! Tons of meter parking in their lot and street parking.

How can you go wrong with brunch?
After years and years of wanting to try this place, I finally have. We had a 25~30 minute wait before we got seated and luckily we got a table in the gazebo indoors. So cute!
The menu is pretty extensive so I had the hardest time trying to decide what to get. After long deliberation, I decided on ordering skillet — a bed of homefries with 3 toppings of your choice (I chose bacon, mushrooms, and salsa) and 1 egg however you want it (I got over easy!) I’m really really glad I ordered it. It’s everything I love in brunch. I splattered on some ketchup and it was a perfect combination.
My friends ordered a farmers omelette with homefries & a kalua pork eggs Benedict with hashbrowns. One friend said that her farmers omelette was extremely filled! Which is great, but too many tomatoes for her preference. My other friend loves [kalua pork] eggs benedicts but her only strife with Cinnamon’s one is that her poached eggs were way overdone. The best part about getting benedicts is seeing the yolk ooze out… :(
We split a short stack of red velvet pancakes. I can’t imagine eating them by myself! So rich and decadent, it’s like eating a cakey brownie or chocolate cake! Perfect for dessert.
Brunch is always pricey so I’m not docking a star for the prices… But what I am docking star for is the fact that as efficient the staff is, the customer service is mediocre. A smile goes a long way. Would it kill you to greet the customers, smile, and pretend we aren’t a burden to you?

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day… especially when it’s served at noon.
I can’t think of a better way to start the day than the Kalua Pork Eggs Benedict. It’s like Benedict but so much better.
The Guava Chiffon Pancakes are probably the best pancakes I’ve ever had. I think they give you diabetes but they’re kinda worth it.
The Corn Pancakes with Blueberries are great if you’re looking for something a little less sweet. The berries are more tangy and the cornmeal adds a great texture.
The Harry Potter theme is great — someone really went all out and it’s like a really great spell exploded all over their walls. Sign me up for Hogwarts!

I really have no idea why this place is so popular. My husband and I were both underwhelmed by our food and the atmosphere. Both were mediocre. I ordered the guava chiffon pancakes and my husband got the Hawaiian omelette. I really felt like they were just like any other dishes from any other diner anywhere. It’s not bad, but I would not wait in line for this place. Just not worth it.

I don’t drive out to the Kailua side much, but when I do, a trip to Cinnamon’s is usually in order.
I love breakfast food, and this homey, cozy eatery is one of my favorite breakfast destinations.
Visiting Cinnamon’s on the weekends can be a pain because the lines tend to be long and the eatery is on the smaller side. But, if you show up soon after opening, there’s a better chance you’ll be seated right away.
Two of my friends and I recently got to visit Cinnamon’s for breakfast on a Saturday morning. One of my friends and I did the Lanikai Pillboxes hike early in the morning, then we picked up my other friend who actually lives really close to Cinnamon’s.
We arrived around 8 a.m. and fortunately, we didn’t have to wait too long because our party was small. As usual, the staff was warm and welcoming, and it actually didn’t take too long for our food to come out. It was a good thing because we were starving!
There are so many things to try on the Cinnamon’s menu, but it’s so hard to deviate from those glorious «Red Velvet Pancakes» that I love. Here’s what we got on this trip:
«Kalua Pork Eggs Benedict»: My friend swears by this benedict and says it’s his favorite. He let me have one bite and I can see why! It features Hawaiian pork that’s smoked and shredded, along with the made-​from-​scratch eggs and it comes with home fries or hash browns. The fresh eggs were fluffy and delicious, and the kalua pork added the right amount of salty, savory flavor. Plus, the hollandaise that topped it was on point! I would definitely order this for myself if I’m in the mood for something savory. In fact, I probably would have gotten it on this visit if my friend didn’t get it … but we were all trying to order something different. My friend ordered his dish with the home fries, but I probably would have gotten hash browns because I love hash browns! But the home fries were flavorful and seasoned well.
«Guava Chiffon Pancakes»: Even though my friend’s favorite is the «Kalua Pork Eggs Benedict,» he says he always gets a side of guava chiffon pancakes because the sweetness has to balance out the savory. I was pretty surprised that he pounded it all in one sitting! I still prefer the «Red Velvet» over guava chiffon, but these pancakes are light, creamy and have a fresh, fruity taste. If you like guava, you’re sure to like these pancakes. They’re one of the house specialties.
«Farmers Omelette»: I remember my cousin ordered this omelette on a previous Cinnamon’s visit, and it looked good, so I decided to get it for myself this time. Each omelette is made with three fluffy eggs and comes with your choice of rice, home fries, biscuit, buttermilk pancakes or hash browns. That was a tough choice, but I went with the hash browns … the biscuit and home fries will have to wait until another visit. This mega omelette comes with potatoes, bacon, onions, ham, tomatoes and cheddar cheese. I got my omelette sans the tomatoes and onions; everything else was really delicious! I loved the way the cheese melted everything together and I love it when omelettes have potatoes in them! The crispy hash browns paired perfectly with the fluffy omelette.
«Red Velvet Pancakes:» My friend ordered this dish so we could swap; she gave me one of her pancakes and I gave her half of my omelette so we could enjoy both sweet and savory. If you’re a pancake lover like me, you absolutely must try these «Red Velvet Pancakes,» complete with a white chocolate drizzle. I usually go for the short stack (two pancakes), so that I can sample some other dishes (this is also a great option if you’re ordering «family style»). These pancakes are moist, soft and billowy; they seriously melt in your mouth. The white chocolate drizzle is decadent and definitely contributes to the pancakes’ moistness, and at Cinnamon’s, they don’t skimp on the topping! The pancake-​to-​drizzle ratio is absolutely perfect. The pancakes seem to have shrunken a bit in size over the past years (unless I’ve just gotten acquired to them and I’m no longer super full after indulging in a stack of two), but they’re my go-​to from this restaurant. They tasted just as phenomenal as I remembered them to during this visit.
«Hawaiian Omelette»: If I ever order another omelette, this would be one I’m curious to try, just because I don’t see this combo anywhere else! This omelette includes kalua pork, diced tomatoes, onions and lau lau ingredients (luau leaves, pork and butterfish) served local style. I would alter my omelette slightly and get it sans the diced tomatoes, and I would probably want to try the home fries with this one. But I absolutely love kalua pork and lau lau, so this sounds like a great savory mix!

THE HYPE
After all the rave reviews, I took a special trip out to Kailua to be dazzled by the pancakes and other delights they are known for. We waited 45 minutes to be seated and another 30 to get our food. Famished and ready to dig in, we start with the cinnamon roll. Epic fail! It was dry as hell– Not ooey gooey center that I was hoping for. For some reason I thought this place was known for their cinnamon roll, hence the name. Ok, hopefully the guava pancakes will make me for get about that disappointment. When it came to the table it looked great, a stack of pancakes drenched in that beautiful pink sauce. The sauce tastes good, but the pancakes were dense– not light and fluffy — and had no flavor. Finally, I tried the eggs Benedict. I was really looking forward to trying their hash browns too. The eggs and sauce were cold and over-​cooked like they were premade and sitting out. The hollandaise was curdled and and hash browns were swimming in oil. The bill was about $ 50 so definitely not worth the money or the time we spent waiting in line. This place is all hype.

Expect a long wait, especially on the weekends, but their guava chiffon pancakes are so worth it! Bummed that they don’t do take-​out on the weekends because the wait is so long, but just be prepared and if you have a large party, get there early.
For the items that come with pancakes, you can upgrade to any of their specialty pancakes for a small charge. This is perfect for me because I like to have something savory (eggs, ham, bacon, etc) to counter the sweetness of the pancakes. They have a variety of different pancakes, but my favorite is the guava chiffon. They are light, fluffy and not super sweet.
Whenever I can, I try to incorporate brunch at Cinnamon’s into my trip :)

A popular location, we ended up waiting a good 30 – 40 minutes. The inside is kinda dingy, but they left plenty of the windows and doors open so it didn’t feel stuffy at all.
The fiancé and I thought we were a lot more hungry than we actually were. We ordered two full plates and two (!) pancakes!
The guava chiffon pancakes were sweet, probably sweeter than what I’m used to. But still very good! Also, the red velvet pancakes were decadent and heavy, but delicious!
The plate I ordered was a mix of the crab cake benedict as well as the kalua pig benedict, and it was so good, but once again, very heavy.
The prices were decent and service was good. All in all, the hype was justified. If you’re willing to be a complete fatty and eat enough calories to last you the whole day, come here.