Lox of Bagels & Sand Island Park

There is a bagel shop on Sand Island where we love to stop for lunch.  If you come to visit us and your plane arrives around lunchtime there's a good chance this will be the first place we take you after we pick you up.  In fact, this has become sort of a tradition that our more frequent visitors expect and look forward to.

We were fans of Lox of Bagels when we lived here back in the day and were very happy they were still here when we moved back.  We were also happy when our ever-opinionated boy decided he liked to eat there too!  Not that we would have let him veto us, but it's always more fun to do things when your children are enthusiastic than when they are whining about them.  Our girl isn't verbal enough to be super opinionated but so far she seems to enjoy lunch there too.

Last week we met up with family who were visiting us here on Oahu for lunch at Lox of Bagels.  We got there at 11:30 and thought we would beat the rush but they were starting to run out of certain bagels and all of their tables (their seating area is small!) were taken.  My husband suggested we get our food to go and take it out to the park at the end of Sand Island.

I don't remember ever driving all the way to the end of Sand Island before, but that's where the park is.  It definitely wasn't the prettiest one I've seen but we stopped right at the entrance and found a spot where we had a great view of Aloha Marketplace and downtown Honolulu.  We had a nice little picnic there and afterward our girl had fun running around and pushing her stroller and our boy had fun tree climbing and checking out things at the water's edge.

Do it yourself:

• Lox of Bagels is located at 111 Sand Island Access Road, which is off of Nimitz Hwy.  Once you turn onto Sand Island Access Road you will go down several blocks and it will be in a strip mall on your left, just a few doors down from West Marine.  After you see it, make a U-turn and look for a parking spot.

• They have a lot of different bagel sandwiches to choose from.  My favorite is the veggie sandwich on a toasted sun-dried tomato bagel.  My boy always gets a bagel pizza which I ask them to cut into quarters for him (it cools much faster that way!).  My girl is happy eating a blueberry bagel.  They also have fresh fruit cups and pasta salad for sale, as well as plain and flavored creme cheese.

• If we get there at the end of lunch or after lunch they will be sold out of many of their flavors of bagels.  But if we're there early enough I like to get a dozen bagels to take home.

• As I mentioned, their seating area is small but this is actually the first time we haven't managed to get an empty table there.  Unlike many restaurants, the temperature inside this one is usually on the warm side - probably because of their ovens baking all those yummy bagels.

• Check their website for their hours.

UPDATE • Bathrooms!!  Learned today that the nearest bathroom is a few doors down in the West Marine store, and they are very nice about loaning out their key to kids who just can't wait!

• I'll have to go back and check out the entire Sand Island Recreation Area sometime.  I did notice they have picnic tables and bathrooms.  As you can see in this picture there wasn't much green grass there.  Guess it's been too dry.

• I was there as part of a group of 6 so I felt safe there.  Not sure if I'd be as comfortable if it was just me and the kids.  As always, use your best judgment and common sense when it comes to safety at this park or anywhere.