You do not need a car to eat garlic shrimp on Oahu. The famous trucks are up on the North Shore, roughly an hour or more each way depending on traffic, and we do not rent a car. So our garlic shrimp comes from Waikiki: bought on foot, usually carried back to the room, and eaten with a cold beer and messy fingers.
In late September 2026 we opened the official website and menu for six places in and around Waikiki that serve it, and wrote down what each one actually says right now. Here is what we found, and how we would use each one.
The six, as their own menus list them
Prices and hours below come from each business’s own site, checked in late September 2026. Menus change, so treat this as a starting point.
| Place | Where | Garlic shrimp on the official menu | Hours listed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Water Shrimp & Seafood | Hilton Hawaiian Village, 2005 Kalia Rd | 8 pieces $22 (spicy version also $22); 6-piece sampler $14 | 9 am–10 pm daily |
| Barefoot Beach Cafe | 2699 Kalakaua Ave, Queen’s Surf Beach | World Famous Garlic Shrimp Plate, 6 pieces, $19 | 8 am–9 pm daily; plate served 11 am–8:30 pm |
| Eggs ‘n Things Waikiki Beach Eggspress | 2464 Kalakaua Ave | Garlic shrimp plate with green salad, $19.95 | 6 am–2 pm daily |
| Goofy Cafe & Dine – Waikiki Beach | 2570 Kalakaua Ave (Twin Fin Hotel) | Lemon butter garlic shrimp, 8 pieces: $20 at happy hour, $22 at dinner | Happy hour 2–5 pm; dinner 5–10 pm |
| Giovanni Pastrami | 227 Lewers St | Garlic Shrimp, $26 | 7 am–10 pm daily (per the site’s listing data) |
| ShoreFyre, International Market Place | 2330 Kalakaua Ave #396 | ShoreFyre Garlic Shrimp, $38 | Happy hour 3–6 pm, Mon–Fri at this location |
That is a wide spread, from a $14 sampler to a $38 entree, for what is basically the same idea: shrimp, butter, a lot of garlic.
The ones that work as takeout
Blue Water Shrimp & Seafood
This is the one we would send most people to, mainly because of the hours. Its official site lists the Hilton Hawaiian Village restaurant, inside the Rainbow Bazaar, at 9 am to 10 pm every day, and says plainly that it does not take reservations. It also lists a Lagoon Food Truck at Kahanamoku Beach, 10 am to 7 pm daily.
The menu PDF linked from the site shows Garlic Shrimp (8 pieces) at $22, a spicy version at the same price, and a 6-piece Garlic Shrimp Sampler appetizer at $14 with garlic bread. Entrees come with rice, green salad and corn, per the same PDF.
A note for anyone working from an old map: years ago we bought our garlic shrimp from Blue Water’s counter on Kuhio Avenue, carried it back, reheated it in the microwave, and ate it with cold Kona beer. That Kuhio Avenue spot is not on the current location list. In Waikiki, the site now lists the Hilton Hawaiian Village restaurant and the lagoon truck.
Barefoot Beach Cafe
The menu page (marked “updated 10/22/25”) lists the World Famous Garlic Shrimp Plate at $19: six easy-peel shrimp, spicy or mild, with three more shrimp for $6. It sits with the gourmet plates, which come with white rice with furikake and mixed greens, served 11 am to 8:30 pm. The cafe itself is open 8 am to 9 pm daily, last call for food at 8:30 pm, and the menu says 100% outdoor dining or takeaway.
It is at the Diamond Head end of Kalakaua, facing Queen’s Surf Beach. For us that is a long carry back to the room, so this would be an eat-it-there stop on a walk that way. If you are staying on that end of Waikiki, it is an easy one. We have not eaten here.
Eggs ‘n Things Waikiki Beach Eggspress
The Waikiki menu for the Eggspress at 2464 Kalakaua Ave lists a garlic shrimp plate with green salad at $19.95, plus an option to add four shrimp (Cajun, garlic, or salt and pepper) to any dish for $6.20. The locations page gives this branch 6 am to 2 pm daily, which makes it the earliest opening on this list. The menu does not say whether the plate is served from opening.
We will be honest about how that fits our day: our mornings are coffee made in the room and some fruit, and we are not heading out for shrimp at 6 am. But if you are jet-lagged from the mainland and awake at 5, now you know. We have not tried this plate.
The ones where you sit down with a beer
Goofy Cafe & Dine – Waikiki Beach
The newer Goofy location at the Twin Fin Hotel had its grand opening on May 29, 2026, and Aloha State Daily reported that the happy hour is only at this location, not at the original near Hilton Hawaiian Village. The official happy hour menu (marked “last updated 2026/6/26”) runs 2 to 5 pm and lists Lemon Butter Garlic Shrimp, eight pieces, at $20. The dinner menu lists the same dish at $22.
This is the one on the list that lines up best with our 2 pm habit. The same happy hour drink list has local draft beer, Hop Lei IPA at $8.50 among them. That is a $2 difference on the shrimp, which is small, but a 2 pm start is exactly when we like to sit down. We have not been to this new location yet, so the menu is what we have to go on.
Giovanni Pastrami
This one is on Lewers Street, and it is not the North Shore shrimp truck with a similar name. It is a pizzeria and sports bar. We first had its garlic shrimp a long time ago, and went back for its weekday happy hour in May 2025, when the garlic shrimp was $12 on the happy hour menu with $2 off draft beer. We ordered an IPA with it. It held up.
The current online menu, checked in September 2026, lists Garlic Shrimp at $26 under Local Favorites. The only happy hour section we found there is under beer and wine: Monday to Friday, 4:30 to 6 pm. We did not see a food happy hour on that menu, so do not count on the $12 plate from our 2025 visit. That is later in the afternoon than we like, but it is close to where we stay and we would still walk over.
ShoreFyre at International Market Place
ShoreFyre’s International Market Place menu lists ShoreFyre Garlic Shrimp at $38, the highest price here. Its happy hour runs 3 to 6 pm, weekdays at International Market Place and daily at the Koa Avenue location. We wrote up the full happy hour in our ShoreFyre happy hour guide. For garlic shrimp specifically, we would not choose the $38 entree over the options above.
What we actually eat most: the trucks
After all that, most of our Waikiki garlic shrimp has come from food trucks, not restaurants. In May 2025 we went to Amy’s Shrimp and Poke Shack at the food truck lot at 1958 Kalakaua Ave, and liked it enough to go back a second time. Our order there was the spicy Kauai garlic shrimp, head-on and well sauced. We also bought the spicy plate from a yellow truck on Kapuni Street that was called Angry Shrimp then, and ate it at the picnic tables right there. Peeling shell-on shrimp with messy fingers and a cold beer is, honestly, the part we like best.
Neither truck has a website of its own that we could find. Amy’s does have a map listing with online ordering and posted hours, but we are not repeating prices or hours for either truck here. Trucks change names, spots and schedules more often than restaurants do. Check a current map listing before you walk over.
How we would use this list
- Takeout for the room, any time until 10 pm: Blue Water Shrimp at Hilton Hawaiian Village. The late hours are the reason.
- Sit down at 2 pm with a beer: Goofy’s Waikiki Beach location, happy hour 2 to 5 pm.
- Weekday beer happy hour a bit later: Giovanni Pastrami, 4:30 to 6 pm on its current menu.
- Up early: Eggs ‘n Things Eggspress, which opens at 6 am.
- Walking toward Diamond Head anyway: Barefoot Beach Cafe.
If you do rent a car, the North Shore trucks are a real outing and plenty of people love that day. We are happy with a box of shrimp and a beer back in the room.
Before you walk over
Everything here was read off each business’s own site in late September 2026, except the Goofy happy hour-only-here detail and grand opening date (Aloha State Daily, May 28, 2026) and our own visits, which are dated above. The Blue Water PDF does not say which location it covers, and it carries no date. Prices, happy hour windows and hours can change without notice. The Eggs ‘n Things menu says so itself. Check the official links above on the day you go.
