The Alley Restaurant at Aiea Bowl — Restaurant in Oʻahu

Honestly, who catches a public bus 50 minutes into the suburbs, to eat at an old, divey Bowling Alley? Me. That's who.

While visiting the island last month, a friend & I jumped on a bus from Waikiki & made our way to Aiea late on a Wednesday afternoon. I had originally heard about this place a few months back, catching it on an episode of 'Diners, Drive in's & Dives' while in Dubai for work. Famous for their huge array of tire-sized cakes, mixed-plates & Ox-Tail Soup, we were sold hook, line & sinker.

The Alley Restaurant, located in the front area of Aiea Bowl is without question one of the most wonderfully ambient places I've ever walked into. Part dive, part 80's retro time-warp, The Alley feels like something out of a John Hughes Brat-Pack film. With the ecoing sound of bowling balls being thrown onto polished floor, to the original worn-out carpet, I adored everything about Aiea Bowl immediately.

After an expensive detour to the Waikele Premium Outlets, we walked in here just after 3pm, located a booth in the back & settled in. Having browsed the hundreds of photos already adorning Yelp, I felt particularly confident in what I wanted to order. The Coca-Cola Turkey Sandwich with Waffle-cut Fries & the Combination Plate (Furikake Ahi & Boneless Kalbi) served with Mac Salad & Brown Rice. Our server, who was faultlessly helpful, also sold us on an order of the Spicy Shrimp after querying his favorite menu item. I'm a sucker for a recommendation.

The food arrived to our table one plate at a time, the Coca-Cola Turkey Sandwich up first. It was difficult to know what to expect with this one, the flavour combination sounded confusing, if not intriguing & the plate itself gave nothing away. All I can say is that my expectations were far surpassed. The fries were without question the best I've ever had, which in itself was a high note, since I regularly steer away from ordering waffle-cut fries. The Turkey Sandwich was utterly delicious; the turkey, moist & jam packed full of flavour. I can't say what sort of flavour profile it drew from the Cola marinade but it certainly wasn't what I expected. I'll be back for this one for sure.

The Combination Plate with Furikake Ahi, Boneless Kalbi & Spicy Shrimp hit the table next. The sweet saltiness of the marinated Kalbi was melt in your mouth delicious, the Ahi beautifully seasoned, while the Spicy Shrimp was wonderfully saucy & hit all the write notes of being both spicy & sweet. All in all, it was a wonderful plate of thoughtfully prepared food & I loved it. I loved every part of it.

After all our plates had been cleared & the belly-rubbing started, it unfortunately dawned on both my friend & I that we way too stuffed for desert. Not normally a problem, unless you've ever seen the desert cabinet at The Alley (which runs the entire length of the front counter), this was a travesty! Taking that into consideration, we made the wise decision to throw a few games between us & ultimately pick-up some cake to-go on our way out. Brilliant! We later chose the Lemon Crunch Cake which we enjoyed that night back at our hotel in Waikiki. It was majestic & it was glorious!

This place is absolutely worth travelling for & high on my priority list next time I visit the island. Everything about it is on point, from it's service, food & overall charm. I just can't recommend it...

My coworkers and I went for dinner before the Bruno Mars concert. We’re all business professionals/executives at a very well known company in our mid to late 40’s and, believe me, we do look our ages (sad to say). Nevertheless, I was asked for my ID when ordering a Miller-Lite. Awesome! I’m flattered at that point right? WRONG, they said that my temporary HI drivers license (which is basically an exact paper replica of the actual DL that you get when you renew your DL, which is valid for 60 days, until the DMV mails out your permanent one, (not to mention, TSA approved for travel) was NO GOOD there. I politely asked the server if I could speak to the manager and she said she’d get find him but never came back. So I walked up to the counter and asked again and they pointed me to my server!! Finally, the Manager comes out, reluctantly as if bothered by being summoned, and I had a chance to explain my situation in a civil manner. I told him that I had just renewed my license and showed him that my birthday was 2 weeks ago, when it expired (hence the renewal) and that’ it is in fact a legal form of identification for a period of 60 days upon issue , etc...and he said “sorry we have a no temporary license policy here because it’s on paper and they can be forged”. Clearly, at this point, many of the patrons are now looking at me to get a glimpse of the potential forgery suspect and I retorted, “I’m not trying to board an international flight, Im just trying to order a beer”. Not happening. He was already in the process of walking away while saying “sorry it’s an internal policy we have here’” So my coworkers and I just decided to go elsewhere. The seven of us ended up at Tropics Bar at Pearlridge where we enjoyed their swift and courteous service and far better bar and grill pupus. (Their fried chicken wings, ribeye, and smoke meat are terrific). I bet if we were all in our Sig Zane and Tori Richards Aloha shirts and not in baseball caps, jeans, sneakers, and well...’concert attire’ our experience my have been different. I’m a 220lbs braddah, and I’m wondering if a 45 year old Mr. Watanabe or Mrs. Oshiro would also be denied a Miller light had they produced a temp license, or even be carded at all....I’ll never know. Because I’ll never go back to that mediocre, overpriced place anyway. Btw...we ran up a $500 tab in 90 minutes at Tropics. Pre-Funk for the G-Funk since we left our Versace at the Door at...

I really hate to do this. I have always wanted to eat here but never did. My wife came here a few times and said it was pretty good. But today, not so good.

The Alley Restaurant is on the top/third floor of the Aiea Shopping Center. Open parking spots can be hard to find. Anyway, I was so excited to finally come here. Checked in and the wait was 30 mins but no big deal for great food!

Finally got in and started ordering. I wanted the Loco Moco but the server said that they were out of hamburger, shoyu pork, pork chops, and fried rice. Dang, that must be the good stuff! So I went with the tasty chicken since the table behind me had it and it looked pretty good. I ordered it with brown rice and green leafy salad. My wife ordered the furikake crusted ahi sandwich with waffle fries and my boys shared a medium cheese pizza.

My food came out first admit wasn't too bad. Chicken was a little dry and could have used more sauce. The brown rice was... brown rice. The salad was just cut romaine lettuce with an oriental/thousand island dressing. A few minutes later my wife's sandwich came out. Man it looked so good! Right as my wife was about to eat one of the waffle fries, she stopped. "That's a hair on my fry...". I pulled the plate closer to me, lo and behold there was a 2" hair with white follicle staring at me on top of one of the waffle fries. SMH...

I showed one of the servers and he took it back and got a new one. I would usually just walk out then, but it seemed like a clean place and wanted to give it a chance.

We'll my wife's ahi sandwich wasn't the best either. She said she could have made something way better at home. The fries (non hair) was super good. My kids cheese pizza was ok. The fries was the best out of the entire meal.

We got a piece of lemon crunch cake and chocolate chip blondie. They were both ok. Nothing special. At all.

So after the long wait, hair on fries, mediocre tasting food, and a $56 tab... Never going back...