Best-Value Restaurant for Big Groups in Side — Sharing Menus Done Right

Organising dinner for a big group on holiday is its own small logistics project. You've got ten, fifteen, maybe twenty people — different appetites, a few fussy eaters, someone who "just wants pizza," and everyone quietly wondering what it'll cost. The trick in Side isn't finding a bigger table. It's ordering in a way that gets the most food and variety in front of everyone without the bill spiralling. That's exactly the kind of table Hawaii Restaurant & Bar, in the heart of Side old town since 2000, is set up to feed.

Why sharing beats one-plate-each for a crowd

When everyone orders a single main to themselves, two things happen: the shy eaters over-order, and nobody gets to taste anything but their own plate. Sharing flips that. You cover the table in platters and boards, pass things around, and a group of ten ends up trying twenty different things instead of ten. It's more fun, it feeds picky kids and big appetites from the same spread, and — done right — it stretches further per person.

Hawaii's kitchen already thinks in shareable portions. Several dishes are built "for two," which for a big table is really a serving unit you scale up: order a few and let people help themselves.

Build your group spread, step by step

1. Start the table with meze

Before the mains land, put a Mixed meze plate or two in the middle along with Garlic bread, Onion rings, Calamari and some Chicken wings. Starters are the cheapest way to make a table feel abundant while the grill gets going. If you want ideas for what travels well down a long table, our guide to starters and meze in Side breaks down the crowd-pleasers.

2. Anchor with scaled-up sharing platters

This is the heart of a good-value group order. Everything at Hawaii comes off a real wood fire and charcoal grill, and the "for two" dishes are your building blocks:

• Mixed grills (For 2) — a spread of grilled meats; order two or three and you've fed a big chunk of the table. See our mixed grill guide for what lands on it.
• Hawaii Special (For 2) — the house sharing centrepiece.
• Testi kebab (For 2) — the sealed-pot kebab cracked open at the table, which always gets a reaction from the group; more in our testi kebab explainer.
• Mixed sea plate (For 2) — for the seafood lovers, so the fish crowd is looked after too.

Mix and match a couple of these and you've got meat, kebab and seafood all covered without ordering a separate main for every single person.

3. Send a few pizzas round

There are always people at a big table who'd rather have pizza — teenagers, tired kids, the one friend who doesn't eat lamb. Hawaii's thin-crust 33cm pizzas are made to be sliced and passed. Order a handful across the menu — a Margherita and a Vegetarian for the safe crowd, a Bacon or Pepperoni for the meat eaters, a Hawaii for the sweet-and-savoury fans — and they double as extras everyone picks at. Our 33cm thin-crust guide explains why they're easy to share.

4. Cover the veggies and the kids

No group is one-size-fits-all. There's a genuine vegetarian section — Vegetarian pot, Vegetarian curry, Vegetarian fajita and more — so nobody's left with a plain salad. For younger travellers there's a full children's menu (Chicken Nuggets with Chips, Kids Pizza, Spaghetti) plus alcohol-free kids' cocktails like Spider Man and Barbie, which is a lifesaver on a family group night.

5. Sort the drinks

A big table means a big drinks round, so it helps to know the shape of the list: beer by the 33cl and 50cl, wine by the glass (including Turkish labels like Kavaklıdere), and a long cocktail menu from the Blue Hawaii to the Long Island Ice Tea. If you can time your arrival for the daily happy hour (19:00–20:00 on selected drinks), that first round works harder for you.

Getting a big party there and back

Moving fifteen people across Side after dinner is where evenings usually fall apart. Hawaii offers free hotel pickup from selected hotels (round trip), and an affordable two-way transfer for hotels a little further out — so your group arrives together instead of trickling in over an hour of taxi-hunting. It's worth confirming in advance whether your hotel is on the free list; our page on free hotel pickup covers how it works.

A note on numbers and prices

Hawaii genuinely supports group dinners and celebrations, but for a large table the honest advice is simple: message ahead. Prices, portion sizes and what's freshest change, so check the live menu for exact figures and ask your waiter to help right-size the order once they know your numbers — they'll steer you toward the best-value mix rather than over-ordering. There's no fixed set-menu or minimum you need to worry about; you build the spread from real dishes and pay for what the table eats.

Planning a big one? Book your table at /reservation/ or message us on WhatsApp at +90 533 930 12 83 with your group size and rough arrival time, and we'll help you sort seating, pickup and a shared order that keeps everyone happy — and the bill sensible.