Hawaiian Restaurant Near Me in Mar Vista: Rutt's Royales Since 1976

Rutt's Hawaiian Cafe has cooked Hawaiian comfort food on the Westside since 1976, and it opens at 7:30am every day of the week and stays open until 9pm. The cafe sits at 11707 Washington Place, Los Angeles, CA 90066, in Mar Vista, with a yellow and blue facade and a covered patio out front. Its signature Hawaiian Royale costs $16.95, two Spam musubi are $5.50, and breakfast is served all day. If you type Hawaiian restaurant near me anywhere between Culver City and Venice, this is the long-running answer.

Rutt's opened in Culver City in 1976 and has been a casual Westside mainstay ever since. Paul Wahba bought the restaurant in 2000, and at the start of 2017 he moved it to the current, larger space on Washington Place so the business could handle more catering. A sister catering kitchen now operates two doors away at 11711 Washington Place, and a second Rutt's cafe runs in Gardena at 15322 Normandie Avenue.

National attention came in 2014, when Wahba agreed to have the cafe featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and a sign inside still announces that Guy ate here. The dining room is decorated with surfboards and sea turtles on white walls, and Time Out pointed to a tiki hut bar and splashes of tropical color. The room is built for regulars who want a big plate rather than a scene.

Rutt's calls its Royales famous, and the menu lists seventeen of them. Each is an open scramble of egg and fried rice with onions and bean sprouts, finished with teriyaki on the side. The Hawaiian Royale, $16.95, folds in Portuguese sausage and char siu. Other versions carry kimchi, Spam, kalua pork, BBQ chicken, shrimp, salmon or grilled vegetables, and the citrus chicken Royale tops the list at $19.45.

The Infatuation's critic called the Hawaiian Royale a filling mountain that turns one-note after a few bites, and suggested a generous drizzle of teriyaki or hot sauce to wake it up. One recent Google reviewer ordered a smaller version and still had enough left over for later. Plan on sharing or taking half home, since the full plate is sized for a long morning rather than a quick bite.

The lunch plates cover the Hawaiian canon: a loco moco plate with homemade beef gravy over rice and an egg cooked your way, a lau lau plate, kalua pork with cabbage, BBQ chicken, teriyaki beef, boneless beef short ribs, kal-bi, and a katsu chicken and coconut shrimp combo. Fried saimin comes in nine versions at $15.95 each, from char siu and Spam to shrimp, salmon and vegetables, and lunch bowls start at $13.95.

Breakfast holds its own section, with Spam, Portuguese sausage, char siu or kalua pork plates and eggs, omelettes, burritos and sandwiches. French toast made with King's Hawaiian sweet bread is a long-running order, and it shows up again and again in the Google review highlights. Two Spam musubi cost $5.50 as a side, and The Infatuation praised the spot-on ratio of Spam to rice.

Sweet endings are small and cheap. Shave ice is $3.95, haupia is $2.95, and pineapple bread pudding is $3.95. One birthday group on Google wrote that staff brought the guest of honor bread pudding with a scoop of ice cream, and noted that it went on the bill. Island juices, including guava, POG and lilikoi, sit on the drink list at $2.95, and coffee is $2.65.

Be selective with the soups. The Infatuation's guide to Hawaiian food in LA advised skipping the saimin soup, the kalua pig plate and the cup of haupia as a little bland, and steering straight to the Royales instead. The same review found the katsu chicken thinner and drier than the coconut shrimp on the combo plate, so ask for the shrimp-heavy plate or the kal-bi if crunch matters to you.

Timing helps your wallet. Happy hour runs Monday to Friday from 2pm to 6pm, with $5 plates of Spam musubi, sliders, coconut shrimp and Hula wings, plus $5 beer, wine and mimosas. Tuesday brings $5 tacos filled with kalua pork, short rib, Spam or char siu. Online orders go through the cafe's Toast page, and catering trays for 12 people start at $120.

If the patio is full on a Sunday morning, walk 11 minutes east along Washington Place to Tito's Tacos at 11222 Washington Place in Culver City, which opens at 11am and is known for its crispy hard-shell tacos served at a counter. It is not Hawaiian, but its Google listing counts more than 10,000 reviews, and the bean and cheese burrito is the order regulars keep praising.

Rutt's is about 24 minutes from the Metro E Line's Culver City station on public transit, with a bus ride from Washington and National boulevards followed by a 13-minute walk, according to Google Maps transit directions. Drivers will find the cafe on Washington Place rather than Washington Boulevard, a common mix-up for first-timers, and older guides still list the cafe's former Washington Boulevard address.

The crowd is a mix of neighbors and groups who drive in from across the county. One Google reviewer described a party of nine who drove 55 miles for a birthday lunch, and another named a server, Ada, who made their afternoon. Reviewers in 2026 still mention the generous portions and reasonable prices.

Mitsuwa Marketplace at 3760 S Centinela Avenue is 0.9 miles away, about a 20-minute walk via Venice Boulevard. Its food court holds Hokkaido Ramen Santouka, which serves ramen from 11am to 8:30pm, and the Japanese supermarket around it is a good stop for groceries to take home. Mar Vista Recreation Center sits 1.1 miles away if you need to walk off a Royale.

Five minutes by car down Culver Boulevard, the Wende Museum at 10808 Culver Blvd holds one of the world's most important collections of East German art and artifacts from the Cold War era. Admission and programs are free, and the galleries reopen Saturday, Nov. 7 after a closure. Regular hours are Friday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm, with free parking in the adjacent city lots.

Rutt's Hawaiian Cafe, 11707 Washington Place, Los Angeles, CA 90066 (Mar Vista). Open daily 7:30am to 9pm, with breakfast all day. Hawaiian Royale $16.95, Royales $16.45 to $19.45, fried saimin $15.95, two Spam musubi $5.50, shave ice $3.95. Happy hour Monday to Friday 2pm to 6pm.