Burger Fun on the Beach

Good eats for kids of all ages

Photo: Jimmy Forrest

Driving into Waikiki on a Sunday afternoon to visit a theme restaurant ranks pretty low on my short list of weekend activities. However, I was spending the whole day with my 6-year-old son. We had already gone on a short hike and visited the playground, and now he was in the back seat of the car murmuring “burgers, burgers, burgers.”

Last November, a Cheeseburger restaurant opened its seventh location at Waikiki Beach Walk. It had been more than a decade since I had been to the original Cheeseburger in Paradise in Lahaina (a name now used on the Mainland by another chain associated with Jimmy Buffett) and sampled one of its Island-style burgers. That visit turned out to be my first and last to the chain, even though a couple of other locations opened up in Waikiki. As I remember, the restaurant’s oceanside location was amazing, and the burgers were pretty good. But the restaurant just seemed like one of those goofy places that you go to when you’re on vacation.

Cheeseburger Beachwalk is located in the second-floor space previously occupied by the Holokai Grill. The area is open and airy, with a bar on one end, a dining room on the other and an outdoor deck that overlooks busy Lewers Street in between. Festooning the interior walls are Hawaii memorabilia of all kinds, most of it kitschy, some graceful and romantic and nearly all of it hailing from the era before jet planes. Amid all this nostalgia is a cheeseburger image somewhere in nearly every square foot of wall.

My son loved the décor as soon as we stepped into the restaurant. He chuckled when he saw the mounted and stuffed salmon chewing on a cheeseburger and his eyes grew wide with wonder when he looked up and saw the 1929 Ford Tri-Motor airplane with one of its propellers replaced by a cheeseburger. There were also little cheeseburgers atop tikis, in fruit baskets and sitting in seashells. Kids’ stuff, I thought.

CHEESEBURGER BEACHWALK Waikiki Beach Walk Open daily from 8 A.M. to 1 A.M. 808-924-5034

My son ordered the Cheeseburger Babies ($10.95), a basket of four slider-size burgers, which came with the works: tomato, lettuce, grilled onions and Thousand Island dressing. I ordered the Black ‘N Blue Cheeseburger ($9.95), which featured a generous crumbling of blue cheese and four slices of bacon.

When the Cheeseburger Babies arrived, my son cried out, “Awesome!” and immediately started scarfing them down. I had to keep reminding him to breathe. My cheeseburger was good, too. The blue cheese added a big, savory and creamy kick, but I enjoyed the burger itself. It was pleasingly moist (oily), had plenty of beefy flavor and fell apart nicely in the mouth.

However, the sandwich overall had a little too many fixings for my liking, which made things kind of messy. Next to us, I saw a woman eating her burger — with only one bun — like a small pizza pie. That looked like a good idea.

After about 20 minutes it was all over. My son was playing with a pair of cheesy paper umbrellas that came with our meals. Overhead, classic rock from the ’80s was blaring over the sound system. Sometime after I finished my fries and between “Come on Eileen” and “Gypsy,” I realized it was just kids’ stuff and I was having a really good time.

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