Aloha Aulani

Off The Hook used to be a casual, open-air, no-reservations, table service restaurant serving the exact same menu as pool-side dining.  More recently however, it’s gone through quite a few changes.  The first change is that before 11AM, this is a coffee bar.  The coffee bar used to be at Wailana Pool Bar, but has since relocated over here.  The second change is that it’s gone more upscale than it used to be.  The tables and chairs are now wood instead of metal patio-style furniture, beverages now come in hard, reusable plastic (it’s still next to a pool, so no glass) instead of flimsy disposable plastic, and they’ve brought back actual silverware instead of plastic.  Also, at least according to the Aulani site, they’ve instituted a dress code that requires swim-wear coverups and footwear.  That said, we went in wet swimsuits wrapped in towels with bare feet and we were seated.  Finally, it has its own menu.  The menu used to be same as poolside dining, and while there are still some of the same items on both, now the majority of the items are unique to Off The Hook.

Regarding being a coffee bar in the morning, this is your only real option for morning-beverages outside of basic coffee which you can get at Ulu Cafe. Make sure to look at any signs they have on the counter as sometimes there are surprises like holiday-style drinks such as Pumpkin Spice and Peppermint Mocha. 

The bottom 3 images on this page are actually from when the coffee bar was over at the Wailana pool bar, and these will be updated after our next stay.  That said, the beverage offerings are the same, it just moved locations, added some food offerings, and the prices sky-rocketed (a cappuccino went from $5 to $9 for example).

When coffee bar shuts down, the regular bar and restaurant opens.  There’s a full bar with some bar seating as well as covered and patio table seating.  There are other tables scattered around all the pool areas where you can get table service and order from the same menu as here, and you can always order from your pool chair.

Sometimes someone in your group wants something Off The Hook doesn’t offer, or they already bought a drink poolside.  There’s no problem with them bringing the items with them into the restaurant to dine with you.  It’s all Disney owned, so they are getting their money either way.  You just can’t sit at the restaurant’s designated tables without someone from your group actually ordering something from there.

The burgers tend to be fairly large, so if no one is starving, splitting between two adults is an option.  Our child likes getting the kid’s burger.  They tend to pile on the fries here, so if one of the adults is getting something that comes with fries, we order the kid’s meal with veggies and fruit cup and add some of our fries to the kid plate.  It’s a good thing the burger is substantial because you are looking at a minimum of $23 for a basic burger (up from $18 just two years ago).  You want avocado ($4), bacon ($3), and cheese ($2) on that?  That’s a $32 burger.  

The only other thing we tried so far from the new menu is the lobster roll, Crab Cake BLT, and the Chicken club.  The lobster rool was decent.  It’s a substantial serving, but a little one note in terms of flavor.   The Crab Cake BLT had good flavor and was also definitely going to fill you up, but the overall texture was mushy.  A little bit of a crust on the Crab Cake would have offered a nice contrast.  Really, it felt like I was eating a tuna fish sandwich where the bread wasn’t toasted.  

Alcoholic beverages, as is the case across the resort, are small, weak, and inconsistent.  You never really know what you are going to get.  For $16+ you would hope for better.  We generally stick to the beer when ordering around the resort and bring our own alcohol to the resort if we want something else.

While I haven’t exactly been complimentary towards this location, we eat here once pretty much every time we are at Aulani.  When we’re spending the day swimming, it’s a nice break from the pools and you don’t have to concern yourself with getting cleaned up.  Just wrap a towel around yourself and grab a table.  The food at Ulu Cafe is generally better and more reasonably priced, but we like the atmosphere here and the service is usually very good.  When there is something wrong with your meal, the servers are usually quite good at offering options to fix it.  Just don’t expect to be wowed by anything here.

You can get complimentary self-parking or valet parking after 5:00 PM at Aulani Resort for up to 2.5 hours when you spend $50 or more at Off the Hook. Be sure to bring your parking ticket and purchase receipt with you.  The $50 needs to be all on one receipt, you cannot combine multiple receipts.