Visit #1 ·
★★★★★First time at Buzz's, and I'll be honest — I almost didn't stop. Looked like a place your uncle drags you to on vacation because it was good in 1987. Thatched roof, dark interior, mounted fish on the wall. Fine. I've eaten in worse-looking spots that cooked circles around places with exposed brick and reclaimed wood.
We ordered around the menu — steaks obviously, but I wanted to see what else they were doing. Grabbed the salad bar because when a spot still runs one of those in 2024, you either respect the commitment or you leave embarrassed. Theirs was cleaner than expected. Not phoning it in.
The steak itself was the real question. I've worked enough lines to know when meat is being treated right versus when it's getting buried under butter and char to hide sins. Buzz's is cooking with actual intention. The crust had development. The interior temp was consistent edge to edge, which tells me whoever is back there isn't rushing tickets. That's harder to do at volume than people think.
What caught me off guard was the view. Open-air deck, Kailua side, boats sitting still in the channel. That's not nothing. A lot of places in tourist corridors let the scenery do all the work. Buzz's would still be worth sitting down at if it were landlocked.
Price felt fair for the setting and the execution. Not a cheap dinner, but I didn't feel like I was paying a location tax on bad food.
One visit doesn't tell me much. I need to see what a Tuesday in October looks like versus a July holiday weekend. Third visit is where I'll actually know something. But the first impression here is solid enough that I'm coming back when I'm in Kailua again — and I'm keeping the receipt.