CLOSED: Hanapepe Cafe

Heading west are the little towns of Hanapepe and Eleele. In Hanapepe, there is the Hanapepe Bakery & Cafe. They have a vegetable sandwich as well as a garden salad with all locally grown vegetables (delicious!). Sometimes, the bakery carries vegan goodies. It quite a cute place located in this tiny town. I would recommend it for a quick lunch while driving around the west side of the island.

For a complete review, please see my blog here: http://veganmiss.blogspot.com/2011/09/vegan-kauai-hawaii-part-one.html

despite mediocre online reviews, my husband and I stopped here for lunch and were very pleased. He ordered the teriyaki garden burger which he described as "hearty", his favorite part being the focaccia bread. I order the grilled vegetable sandwich which was sooo tasty; the vegetables were perfectly grilled. Both sandwiches were accompanied by delicious Maui chips and we ordered the hibiscus iced tea which was naturally sweet. We ordered a handful of deserts from the bakery to take down the road and enjoy with coffee. We found the service very friendly and the live music a perfect accompaniment to
our afternoon meal.

We were staying on the North shore, so we combined our visit to the Hanapepe Cafe with a Napali boat tour and Hanapepe's Friday night Art Night happening. I decided to check the menu when we first arrived since we had an hour before our reservation. There were just 3 or 4 entrees on the menu and since none were vegan, I asked the hostess what they might be able to make vegan since 3 in our party of 5 were vegan. She wasn't sure what vegan was and said she'd check with the kitchen. Her reply when she returned was simply "Um, no, not tonight." I was surprised since one of the entrees was a pasta dish with vegetables and an alfredo sauce which should have been an easy thing to switch for tomato or even olive oil, but since they weren't interested, I told her we'd have to cancel our reservation. When she found our name on the books, she looked at me and said "so, um, you want to cancel?" to which I replied, "well, if you can't make anything for vegans to eat I guess we'll have to." At $25 per entree and $15 for appetizers, I wasn't all that broken up about it, but I was surprised that they would give up that much money from a party of 5 rather than just improvise a vegan pasta sauce. I'd suggest mentioning your vegan status when making a reservation.