The 10-day Kona Coffee Cultural Festival runs November 6–15, 2026. It opens on November 6 with the Lantern Parade from Kailua Pier to Hale Halawai County Pavilion. After opening night, though, the evenings move south. From Monday, November 9, through Saturday, November 14, the after-dark program stays on the highway through Kealakekua and Kainaliu. Several of the stops sit just a few address numbers apart. The morning tours run a few miles further south, among the farms of Kealakekua and Captain Cook.
Here is the evening sequence on the South Kona stretch. The festival's own event pages list the road as both Mamalahoa Highway and Hawaiʻi Belt Road.
| Night | Event | Venue and address | Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon., Nov. 9 | 5-Course Coffee-Flavored Supper Club with Chef Stewart Woodman | The Theatery, 79-7384 Hawaiʻi Belt Rd., Kealakekua | 5:30–8:30 p.m. | $95 plus $10 button, 36 seats |
| Tue., Nov. 10 | Old Time Kona Stories, Volume 1 | Aloha Theatre, 79-7384 Hawaii Belt Rd., Kealakekua | Doors 5:30 p.m., show 6 p.m. | $15 general, $10 concession, button for 12 and up |
| Wed., Nov. 11 | Kona Espresso Martini & Coffee Cocktail Competition | Hale Cocoa, 79-7378 Mamalahoa Hwy., Kealakekua | 5–7 p.m. | Free with button, 21 and older |
| Wed., Nov. 11 | Nani Keao Mele Mele Concert & Okonomiyaki | Kona Hongwanji Buddhist Temple Social Hall, 81-6630 Hawaiʻi Belt Rd., Kealakekua | 5–9 p.m. | Button for 12 and up, food sold separately |
| Sat., Nov. 14 | The Grand Finale | The Theatery, 79-7384 Hawaiʻi Belt Rd. # B, Kealakekua | 6–9 p.m. | $150 plus button, capacity 150 |
Four of the five events take place at two neighboring addresses, 79-7384 and 79-7378. The fifth is at 81-6630, down the road from Greenwell Farms at 81-6581.
One address, two very different nights
The Theatery and Aloha Theatre share the same street number, 79-7384, and festival week makes good use of that. The supper club on Monday is the smallest ticketed evening of the South Kona week. Chef Stewart Woodman is cooking five courses flavored with coffee for 36 seats, and tickets are $95 plus the $10 festival button. With seating that tight, the best time to book is well before November.
On Tuesday the same address hosts a show that couldn't happen anywhere but Kona. Old Time Kona Stories, Volume 1 is a radio-style performance built from readings of the book. The readers are family members of the authors plus local performers, with live foley sound effects. General admission is $15. The page lists a $10 rate, though it names the qualifying groups two ways: "Kupuna and Little Keiki" in one place and "Kupuna and students" in another. Festival buttons are required for everyone 12 and older, and tickets are sold through apachawaii.com. Soil Plus is the event sponsor.
Saturday's Grand Finale returns to The Theatery and is the biggest ticket of the week. The page lists the event as shared between The Theatery and Hale Cocoa and places it in Kainaliu, even though the street address reads Kealakekua. General admission is $150 per person plus the button, and the room holds 150. Six tables of 10 are available at $1,500 each. The evening includes two drink tickets, a chef-curated multi-course "Taste of Kona" menu, dessert, dancing to Ms. Demeanor & the Felons, prizes, and a silent auction. Extra drinks are sold separately. The event is adults only. As of late September, the page said tickets would be "available soon" on the festival website, so they were not yet on sale.
Wednesday is the night to stay late
Wednesday, November 11, is the only South Kona evening with two events, and their hours overlap without fully lining up. That makes it easy to do both. The espresso martini competition at Hale Cocoa runs from 5 to 7 p.m., and Big Island bartenders compete in two categories, Best Espresso Martini and Best Coffee Cocktail. Both categories award first and second place. Entry is free with a festival button, and guests must be 21 or older. Bartenders who want to compete send their recipes to Trish Gavin of Puna Chocolate.
The social hall at Kona Hongwanji Buddhist Temple stays open until 9 p.m. The evening pairs a traditional Japanese koto concert with Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, made with Otafuku Sauce Company and sold on site. The event is presented by the Hatsukaichi Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Delica Wing. Everyone 12 and older needs a button. A drink at Hale Cocoa followed by dinner at the temple hall makes for a full evening in Kealakekua.
The mornings run south toward Captain Cook
The daytime program sits a few miles south of the evening venues, and none of it requires a drive north into town.
- Greenwell Farms Seed to Cup Farm Tour, 81-6581 Mamalahoa Hwy., Kealakekua. Tours run November 9–13 at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. and are free with a festival button.
- Hala Tree Coffee Kona Coffee Farm Tour, 82-5966 Mamalahoa Hwy., Captain Cook. Tours leave every hour from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., weekdays only from November 6 through 13. Each tour takes 12 people, and a $10 festival button is required.
- Kona Coffee Living History Farm, 82-6199 Mamalahoa Hwy., Captain Cook. The farm is open November 6, 10, and 13 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with last entry at 1:15 p.m. Admission is $15 general or $10 for Hawaiʻi residents, and either rate also requires the $10 festival button. Tickets are sold on site.
Hala Tree's farm tours come in a year when the company has expanded beyond the district. In May, founders Jean and Danielle Orlowski announced a Waikīkī café set to open July 1, 2026, at The Lilia Waikīkī on Kūhiō Avenue, using coffee from the family's Captain Cook farms. In November, though, the tours happen on the farm itself, in small groups.
Why the Living History Farm's dates fall where they do
The Living History Farm takes a break before the festival. Kona Historical Society has posted this notice:
"The Kona Coffee Living History Farm will be closed to the public in the month of October. Our farm interpreters will be taking some well-deserved time off between the busy summer season and the holidays to visit with their own families."
The society also canceled its Portuguese Bread Bake & Sale for Thursday, October 1, while pest control services its facilities. If you were planning a weekday visit in October, push it to November.
The festival dates line up with the farm's normal week. The farm is usually open Tuesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with final admission at 1:15 p.m. November 6 and November 13 fall on Fridays, and November 10 is a Tuesday, so all three festival days land on the farm's usual open days. On festival days, visitors also need the button on top of admission. First-time drivers should look for the farm's sign and driveway on the makai side of the highway.
Tuesday, November 10, gives the fullest picture of coffee history in a single South Kona day. You can walk the Living History Farm in Captain Cook between 10 a.m. and 1:15 p.m., then drive north for the 6 p.m. Old Time Kona Stories show at Aloha Theatre. Both events tell Kona's coffee history, one through the 1920s farmhouse and the other through stories from the families who lived it.
What the $10 button covers in South Kona
The festival describes its $10 button as admission to 10 days of family-friendly festival events and the way to get special rates on ticketed ones. Children 5 and under get in free. For the South Kona schedule, the button does three different jobs:
- The button is your whole admission to the Greenwell Farms tour, the Hala Tree tour, the cocktail competition at Hale Cocoa, and the Kona Hongwanji concert. You'll pay separately for the okonomiyaki.
- The button is required on top of a ticket for the supper club, the Grand Finale, and the Living History Farm.
- The button is required by age at Old Time Kona Stories, where everyone 12 and older needs one in addition to a ticket.
Buttons are sold at every festival event. The easiest plan is to buy yours at the first South Kona stop and wear it all week.
Some festival events with "Kona" in the name are not in South Kona. Island Sun Coffee's diversified-crops tour is in Kailua-Kona. The exhibition Revisiting Kealakekua Bay, Reworking the Captain Cook Monument, though it's about South Kona's best-known shoreline, runs November 11–14 at Donkey Mill Art Center in Holualoa and requires registration. If your week also includes the upper Kona belt, our earlier guide to Holualoa's coffee calendar covers that area, and the South Kona summer guide covers the same mauka corridor in another season.
At Kona Pacific Realty, we live along this highway, and festival week is one of our favorite times on it. If questions about your own place in coffee country come up between farm tours, take a look at our South Kona neighborhood page or connect with your Kailua‑Kona agent. Me ke aloha pumehana.
