Overview
Living Foods is a market-café-restaurant in Poʻipū that blends grab-and-go groceries with a casual all-day dining room. For a traveler, the appeal is practical: it can cover breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, wine, and quick provisions in one stop, which is especially useful in a resort area where simple, healthy, non-fully-poritarian options are valuable. The current official site says it opened in fall 2021 and is meant for both kamaʻāina and travelers. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
The Google Place record matches the published address and phone, and it still shows the business as operational. The only minor naming drift is that Google’s formatted address says “Suite 124,” while the current site writes “Suite D124”; those appear to be the same Shops at Kukuiʻula location rather than a true move. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
Cuisine & Specialties
Living Foods sits in a broad Hawaiian-American-farm-to-table lane, but the menu is more varied than that label suggests. It mixes breakfast plates, burgers, fish dishes, salads, sandwiches, and some globally influenced items, with an emphasis on local fish, local beef, and produce. The strongest signal from the current menu is that this is a flexible, all-day café with enough range to work for mixed groups, not a narrow specialty restaurant. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Overall menu style: casual, health-conscious café food with a resort-friendly range: brunch, burgers, salads, poke, fish, sandwiches, cocktails, beer, and wine. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Notable dishes and specialties: smash burger; ahi poke bowl; loco moco with kimchee fried rice; Belgian waffle with lilikoi butter; chicken & waffles; fish & chips; broiled daily catch; seafood pasta; shaking beef. The menu also includes breakfast standards like eggs benedict and avocado toast. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Drinks: a full coffee program by day, plus cocktails, draft beer, wine, and rotating hard kombucha/cider. The cocktail list leans playful and tropical rather than classic-room formal. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Price expectations: Google places it at price level 2, and OpenTable lists it as “$30 and under.” In traveler terms, expect moderate resort-area pricing rather than bargain café prices. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Dietary usefulness: the menu and third-party service listings both point to vegetarian-friendly options and a broad enough structure for lighter meals, salads, and breakfast. It is less obviously a dedicated vegan or gluten-free restaurant, though it appears capable of serving flexible groups. (kauaiconnect.com)
Notable Features & Ambiance
This is more than a restaurant; it is also a market and café, so the experience feels like a casual, multipurpose resort-side stop rather than a formal sit-down dinner house. The official site emphasizes grab-and-go items and groceries, while the visitor-facing info suggests open daily service with brunch, dinner, and reservable tables. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Service model and seating: counter-oriented market/café service with dine-in seating; tables can be booked, but walk-in use is clearly part of the model. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Atmosphere and decor: casual, relaxed, and designed for everyday use rather than a formal dinner. The positioning is “fun, casual,” and the physical setup includes market shelving plus café seating. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Practical features: outdoor seating is implied by prior published material and the current concept as a market-café in a resort complex; the shop listing also indicates wheelchair accessibility and takeout/curbside support. Free parking is not explicitly stated in current primary sources, so it should not be assumed without on-site confirmation. (kauaiconnect.com)
- Best fit: breakfast, brunch, a casual lunch, an easy dinner, coffee breaks, and mixed-party meals where one person wants a salad, another wants a burger, and someone else wants a drink or grocery stop. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Weaker fit: if someone wants a white-tablecloth experience, a very specialized tasting menu, or a destination dinner built around ambiance alone, this is probably not the right choice. That is an inference from the concept and menu breadth rather than a quoted review claim. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
History & Background
The current official history is straightforward: Living Foods says it opened in fall 2021 and was built to offer healthy everyday food alongside upscale groceries, with direct sourcing from local farmers, ranchers, and artisans. The legacy framing from the older published dossier appears broadly consistent with that community-market idea, but the current official materials are the better source for present-day identity and should be treated as the current baseline. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
Review Sentiment Snapshot
What People Love
The recurring upside is convenience plus versatility: travelers and locals seem to value that it can function as a café, a market, and a casual meal stop in one place. The menu’s breadth, the healthy-leaning options, and the ability to satisfy different dietary preferences are the most consistently supported strengths across official descriptions and third-party writeups. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
Common Gripes
The main caution is price: several third-party descriptions frame it as reasonably priced for Poʻipū but still not cheap, especially compared with basic counter-service food. Beyond that, downside evidence is thinner and somewhat mixed; I did not find strong, repeated complaints in the sources reviewed that would justify a sharper critique. Any “it’s a bit pricey for what it is” conclusion is well-supported, while stronger negative claims would be overreach. (opentable.com)
Practical Visitor Tips
- Current official hours on the site are daily 7:00 AM–9:00 PM, with brunch listed 8:00 AM–3:00 PM and dinner 3:00 PM–9:00 PM. OpenTable’s listing shows a narrower daily dining window, so the official site is the better reference for planning, but it is worth checking the day-of if you are timing a late meal. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Tables can be booked, but the place clearly also supports walk-in café use and takeout. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- If you want the broadest menu choice, go earlier in the day or at brunch; the place functions as a market, café, and restaurant, so it is easy to stop in for something quick or pieced together. That is an inference from the structure of the business and its hours. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- The location is in the Shops at Kukuiʻula in Poʻipū, so it is convenient for South Shore visitors staying nearby. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- For groups with different preferences, this is a strong “everyone can find something” option; for a special-occasion dinner focused on atmosphere alone, it is a weaker match. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
Verification Notes
- Official site lists the address as The Shops at Kukui’ula, 2829 Ala Kalanikaumaka Street, Suite D124, Koloa, HI 96756; Google Places lists 2829 Ala Kalanikaumaka St Suite 124, Poipu, HI 96756. These appear to be the same place, but the suite formatting differs. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Phone number matches across official site, Google Place data, and third-party listing: (808) 320-7642. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- Google Places still shows the business as OPERATIONAL. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
- No major verification issues found beyond minor suite-number formatting drift. (livingfoodshawaii.com)
Sources
- Living Foods official home page —
https://www.livingfoodshawaii.com/— retrieved 2026-04-03. Useful for the current identity statement, market/café/restaurant framing, and traveler/kamaʻāina positioning. - Living Foods official About page —
https://www.livingfoodshawaii.com/about— retrieved 2026-04-03. Useful for opening history, sourcing philosophy, and signature dish examples. - Living Foods official menu page —
https://www.livingfoodshawaii.com/menu— retrieved 2026-04-03. Useful for current dishes, drinks, and price signals. - Living Foods official Visit Us page —
https://www.livingfoodshawaii.com/visit-us— retrieved 2026-04-03. Useful for current address formatting, hours posture, reservations, takeout, and contact details. - OpenTable listing for Living Foods —
http://www.livingfoodshawaii.com/— retrieved 2026-04-03 via OpenTable page. Useful for dining style, price framing, cuisine tags, chef name, and booking posture. - Kauaʻi Connect listing for Living Foods —
https://kauaiconnect.com/living-foods/— retrieved 2026-04-03. Useful for third-party confirmation of address, phone, and service capabilities like dine-in, takeout, reservable, beer, wine, brunch, and wheelchair access. - Google Place details supplied in prompt —
https://maps.google.com/?cid=14416958921533751462— retrieved 2026-04-02. Useful as the baseline identity anchor, operational status, rating, and official Google address/phone alignment.
