Hawaiian News
Hawaii plate-lunch trend hits McKinney via new restaurant Mo' Bettahs
Mo' Bettah spam musubi
A taste of Hawaii comes to McKinney via Mo’ Bettahs Hawaiian Style Food restaurant, opening on January 26 at 6201 S. Custer Rd., near TPC Craig Ranch and Liberty High School, where it is ready to share its island-style barbecue menu, starring the classic Hawaiian plate lunch.
Mo’ Bettahs was founded in Bountiful, Utah in 2008 by Kimo and Kalani Mack with a goal of providing guests with the Hawaiian island barbeque experience they enjoyed while growing up in O’ahu, Hawai’i.
Let's recap what the Hawaiian plate lunch is, description provided by Hawaii's Best Travel: It's a meal centered on a protein such as teriyaki beef, chicken katsu, or kalua pork, plus two scoops of rice, and a scoop of macaroni salad. The dish is believed to have originated in the 1880s when plantation workers in Hawaii would bring their lunches to work. They obviously liked them some starch.
It has since become an iconic part of the state’s food culture shared across the world by chains like Mo' Bettahs. Since partnering with Savory Restaurant Fund, Mo’ Bettahs has grown to 50 locations in Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Kansas, and Nevada.
Mo' Bettahs' lineup of proteins includes teriyaki chicken, steak, kalua pig, deep-fried katsu chicken, and shrimp tempura.
The plate lunch is pretty much it, although they are excited about a new item they recently introduced: Spam Musubi featuring a slice of fried Spam glazed in teriyaki sauce and placed atop rice seasoned with furikake, then wrapped in a ribbon of nori (dried seaweed).
McKinney is the seventh Mo’ Bettahs restaurant in DFW, following locations in Plano which opened in 2022, and northeast Dallas which opened in November 2021, and was also concept's official debut in Texas.
Ono Hawaiian BBQ's Hawaiian BBQ Mix Plate.Photo courtesy of Ono Hawaiian BBQ