History of Tiki
The Honu strives to feed our patrons innovative, fresh, local foods and cocktails so that they leave our restaurant happy and inspired with the confidence to recommend us to their network of family, friends, and colleagues!
The Best in the Business
The Honu has created an establishment full of friendly and inspired people to cater to and create a relaxing and friendly environment where our guests can experience our creative and tasty food and beverages. We base our concept on our ability to bring you a wide variety of food and beverages that is always made with fresh, housemade, local and seasonal ingredients and our secret ingredients “LOVE and Aloha”
About Honu
HONU means turtle in Hawaiian ~ typically referring to the endangered Green Sea Turtle in Hawaii. Several years back we fell in love and fully appreciated the beauty and majestic turtles that peacefully sleep on the beaches and lava rocks on the Big Island. While swimming and snorkeling the shallow beaches often one will get a big surprise around a corner when these large forms come into view seemingly swimming one with the currents. We honor these amazing animals at our restaurant and invite you to share in our continuing story that decorates our walls and fills our hearts. Your `Ilio (means dog in Hawaiian) or your canine furry family members are always welcome on our Lanai. Your “Keiki” (means child in Hawaiian) can stay busy working on our keiki menu which is full of turtle themed activities. We welcome all at our FAMILY and Veteran owned cafe’.
Our History
The Honu started out as a take-out restaurant and Food Truck and has evolved into a full service restaurant and tiki bar. A few years back we started a food truck business whose name sake came from an actual turtle that was brought here from Tulum Mexico. His name is Charlie Tulum and he still lives on Indian Rocks Beach to this day. At the same time we were rolling around in the truck; we opened a take-out restaurant in Largo, Florida where we decided that a full service restaurant was the direction we wanted to go and thus bought the property here at 516 Grant Street in Dunedin in September of 2014. We closed our doors at the funky little Taco Shack and moved all of our equipment and dreams to Dunedin! After a full year of planning; and another extended stay in Hawaii, early 2016 we opened our full service cafe named appropriately “The HONU”. (means turtle in Hawaiian). We started gathering recipes back in 2011 when our Chef Kimberly Platt started culinary school and have over 2000 handwritten recipes just waiting to jump off the pages and into our pans, bowls & plates. In January 2020 we opened our authentic Hawaiian Tiki Bar outback and continue to grow and morph into an ever-changing business. The 2020 pandemic only made us stronger and we pushed through, survived and grew even more during the shut down. Now in 2021 we are working on the continued renovation of the HONU. Our inside dining space has been updated to coincide with the tiki bar and is decorated in true polynesian culture. We will bring you a private Rum bar that will be our playground for all that is tiki drinks and all that is culinary treats paired by our chefs and cocktail experts. We are also working on the front lanai and we will bring you another exciting and adventurous relaxing space to come visit again and again. You will never be bored here. We strive to create a menu where every guest can find a favorite dish, even the puppies! We invite you to come experience our lei’d back cafe and know that we have put our heart and soul into bringing you our version of the Aloha spirit!
