The Coffee Shack

The coffee is grown below the deck. The Coffee Shack pours 100% Kona from trees on its own two-plus acres and serves it from a roadside room above the Kona coast, with Kealakekua Bay in the middle distance and breakfast running into lunch.

100% Kona, grown on the property

The coffee is the reason to stop, and its identity is local and direct rather than technical. What is in the cup comes from the surrounding hillside, and the farm side of the operation is part of how the cafe presents itself rather than a detail hidden behind the counter. The farm side even has its own name, Coffee Shack Farms, and it is not a marketing flourish, since the trees are on the slope below the tables. Coffee runs through the whole service instead of only the morning, so it works as well with a lunch sandwich or a slice of pie as it does with eggs.

A century-old room and the lanai

The character is casual, rustic and scenic. The building is close to a century old and carries the informal feel of somewhere families have been stopping for a long time. The seat to want is the wrap-around lanai, where the view stretches some 26 miles of Kona coastline, taking in Kealakekua Bay and the coffee trees on the slope below. It is a breakfast-and-lunch destination rather than a dinner restaurant, and a natural break for anyone moving through South Kona toward Honaunau Bay and the City of Refuge. Travellers working their way along the coast treat it as the natural stop, which is why the lanai fills first.

Order Kona coffee, then a house sweet

Start with the 100% Kona, then decide how much of a meal you want around it. Mornings run to home-cooked breakfast plates; lunch is practical and made to order, with sandwiches on fresh bread, custom pizzas and salads built on locally grown produce. The sweets are where the kitchen shows off. Banana bread, lilikoi cheesecake and Kona lime pie are the three to know, with carrot cake, cinnamon rolls and lemon coconut bars filling out a homemade dessert list meant to be eaten with a cup of the estate's own coffee. The simplest version of the visit is a Kona coffee, a slice of something, and the coastline doing the rest.