Aloha Island Grille — Restaurant in Live Oak

I'm not in Santa Cruz all that much. That's the conundrum about living in Vallejo: so extremely far from all the great NorCal beaches. Stinson, Pacifica, and Santa Cruz: none of them a mere hop, skip, and jump away. Anyhow, I digress, as I'm veering away from the point of this review. My friends and I had just finished up a boogie board session and we were crazy hungry. We had planned to hit up Pono after the beach, so we headed there... and were gracefully turned away. That, my friends, sucked. No one likes feeling turned away. So I hit up the ol trusty Yelp app and found the Aloha Island Grill. Mad and hungry (mad hungry, son?), we headed there in hopes of some good grub.

Upon arriving, I see the line is out the door. Reasonably, I was a bit on the aggravated side as I was getting hungrier by the minute and the prospect of waiting in a line was slightly daunting. Still, the reviews for this place spoke highly of it, so I decided to wait it out. Also, it was very near closing time, so I wasn't sure if they'd still take our order. Fortunately, the long line moved quite briskly upon our arrival. We were able to get our order in. Very friendly servers as well, so very nice and chill. Cute to boot! So here on out, I just had to be patient for a few more minutes to get some food in my now insane stomach.

The decor of this place is really nice. You get the total island/surfer town feel upon entering. The walls are chock-full of surf stickers, logos, related signage, and even some boards. There's even TVs overhead that are playing some surf DVDs. Very nice touches in those areas.

I was joyous upon the arrival of my food to the table, a mere few minutes after ordering. I had ordered the loco moco and an ala carte order of the teriyaki chicken. The food was nice and hot. First thing I tried was the loco moco. It was good. Well, better than good. It was definitely better than anything you'd get at L&L. Next was the teriyaki. Oh my goodness. This was the best chicken teriyaki I've ever had at a restaurant. Besides being juicy, it was tender and oh so very flavorful. I LOVE that it wasn't just some chicken that was slathered with tons of teriyaki and then flat-top grilled. No no, this was seasoned/marinaded just right and then it was cooked on an actual charcoal grill (YES, I am able to taste the difference, being a master home BBQer of sorts.) That teriyaki was, hands down, the best I've ever had. Any joint, Japanese, Hawaiian, or otherwise, will be hard pressed to make something that tastes better.

All in all, I like this place a lot and it absolutely sucks to have to live so far from such a cool joint. Next time I'm in town for some boogie boarding, I'll definitely hit this place up again. A place with great grub that seems to appreciate...

The 1st thing we saw when we walked into the place was the cashier eating where the food is ready to serve for customers. It was a big turn-off. We didn't have the energy to find another spot to eat at since we had just spent our entire day at the boardwalk.

I don't even think the lady washed her hands after stuffing her face and serving us our food. Very unsanitary.

The Real Islanders know this is nothing compared to island food. Sorry, but the food was bland. The chicken katsu was very thin and overcooked. The Loco moco beef patty was overcooked as well. The lady didn't even ask how we wanted our eggs cooked. Especially it was for a my child who is a picky eater.

My friend had ordered the poke' and it was very salty. Took bad it wasn't filled up either.

At the end of it all, we cleaned up our dishes in an already full bus bin. I asked the cashier where we would put our dishes. And she pointed to another full bus bin where another family was dining in. We did what we could to clean up after ourselves.

Overall, I don't think I would recommend this spot to anyone. I didn't feel any...

Oh..... very poor service, idon't know if this is coincidence that were minority. Me and my family arrived at afternoon. Waitress and cashier is the same. We waited for an hour. We ordered their special. Some of the guest after us are getting their foods. When i asked about our food. They didn't start making it. It's just a waste of time. Some of the people also didn't got their food in time. One of the guest was saying that his food gets cold because it was sitting at there counter for so long. I know that you have to support locals. But as a restaurant and business owners. You guys have to give you're best service to anyone.the cooks are so sloppy that they drop achicken katsu on the floor. The cook never bothered picking it up. Or cleaning it up. It's so NASTY.. I'll never come back to this...