Mo' Bettahs Opens 82nd Location in Oklahoma City

A Taste of Aloha Comes to Rockwell Avenue

Mo' Bettahs Hawaiian Style Food will open its doors at 14020 N. Rockwell Ave. on Sept. 18, tucked into the Quail Springs area of northern Oklahoma City, just south of the Edmond line.

It's a spot chosen with intention, close enough to the Memorial Road corridor to catch both longtime Oklahoma City regulars and the Edmond crowd that already treats this stretch as a second neighborhood. The restaurant will be the company's 82nd location nationwide, though for a brand that has spent years building its presence across the state, this feels less like breaking new ground than setting another place at a table that's already familiar.

From Bus Routes to Backyard Recipes

The company's roots trace back to brothers Kimo and Kalani Mack, who grew up on O'ahu and founded Mo' Bettahs in 2008 in Bountiful, Utah.

Before there was a restaurant, there were bus routes: both brothers drove city buses on O'ahu, a detail they've never left out of the story. Kimo Mack has talked plainly about what it took to get started, recalling that in 2007 he sold his house in Hawai'i and liquidated his assets just to fund the idea, turning family savings into startup capital before either of them had run a restaurant a day in their lives. To learn the business, they sat inside fast-casual chains like Cafe Rio and simply watched, studying how a dining room moves, how menus get priced, how service actually flows.

Even the name carries that same hands-on, unpolished honesty. It comes from Hawaiian Pidgin, translating roughly to "more better," a phrase Kimo Mack has said captures the food and the culture in equal measure.

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1555789185-76365931ffaa?ixid=M3w2MjYzNjJ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw3fHxIYXdhaWlhbiUyMGZvb2QlMjByZXN0YXVyYW50JTIwcG9rZSUyMGJvd2xzfGVufDB8MHx8fDE3ODk0OTE1NjJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0

Plate Lunch and Plantation Roots

What lands on the plate reflects all that research. The menu centers on the classic Hawaiian plate lunch: teriyaki chicken, steak, kalua pig, pulehu chicken, katsu chicken, all served with steamed rice, vegetables, and the brand's signature macaroni salad. That macaroni salad has developed something of a following on its own, with cofounder Kalani Mack noting that customers have started calling it "macaroni crack" because they simply can't stop eating it, the result of a simple recipe left to sit overnight so the flavors settle in.

The stores themselves carry the same thread of memory. Plantation-style tin roofs echo the founders' grandparents' home. A surfboard nods to the ocean. A state flag paired with a steersman's paddle honors both Hawaiian heritage and the leadership role a steersman holds on a canoe team. None of it reads as theme-park island imagery. It's built to feel like the backyard cookouts the Mack brothers grew up around, not a version of one.

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1768326119231-bf064c1b8fdf?ixid=M3w2MjYzNjJ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw1fHxIYXdhaWlhbiUyMGZvb2QlMjByZXN0YXVyYW50JTIwcG9rZSUyMGJvd2xzfGVufDB8MHx8fDE3ODk0OTE1NjJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0

Friends and 'Ohana Take Over Rockwell

Rather than easing into the neighborhood quietly, Mo' Bettahs is throwing a full Friends and 'Ohana celebration on Sept. 17, with Kimo and Kalani Mack on hand to lead it themselves.

The day starts with complimentary mini plates and drinks from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., moves into a ribbon-cutting at 4:30 p.m., and closes out with a dinner and block-party stretch from 5 to 7 p.m. that includes food samples, branded merchandise, a caricature artist and live entertainment.

Kalani Mack described the opening not as an introduction but as a continuation: "Oklahoma has been part of the Mo' Bettahs 'ohana for years, and we're grateful for the way communities here have welcomed us. Opening another restaurant gives us the chance to share even more of the food, hospitality and Aloha we grew up with in Hawai'i. We can't wait to welcome our new neighbors around the table." CEO Rob Ertmann has struck a similar note in recent statements, framing the company's growth as deliberate rather than opportunistic and pointing to guest loyalty as the engine behind its numbers.

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1633862472152-e3873eb1b3ff?ixid=M3w2MjYzNjJ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzfHxIYXdhaWlhbiUyMGZvb2QlMjByZXN0YXVyYW50JTIwcG9rZSUyMGJvd2xzfGVufDB8MHx8fDE3ODk0OTE1NjJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0

The Money Behind the Aloha

Behind that hospitality sits a fairly significant capital story. Mo' Bettahs partnered with private equity firm Savory Fund in 2017, a relationship that helped take the brand from six locations to 56 across seven states while keeping same-store sales growing every single year.

In October 2024, Blue Marlin Partners and Trive Capital bought a majority stake in the company from Savory Fund, with both Savory and the Mack brothers holding onto minority ownership. By April 2026, the company reported operating nearly 80 corporate-owned restaurants across nine states and disclosed positive same-store sales growth for the 18th consecutive year, a run Ertmann called rare in the industry: "Eighteen consecutive years of same-store sales growth is rare in this industry, and it doesn't happen by accident. It reflects disciplined execution, the quality and authenticity of our menu, and the loyalty of our guests."

Kimo Mack, for his part, keeps the framing closer to home. "We didn't create Mo' Bettahs to follow a trend," he's said. "It was built on the recipes and culture we grew up with, cooking alongside our parents and aunties in the backyard. Bringing authentic plate lunch and Aloha to the mainland isn't a strategy for us. It's who we are."

Riding a Bigger Hawaiian Wave

This expansion is riding a larger current in the industry, one that traces back to the poke craze of the 2010s, which helped push chains like Ono Hawaiian BBQ, L&L Hawaiian BBQ and Hawaiian Bros Island Grill into national relevance.

Mo' Bettahs has taken a different path than many of its peers by keeping every location company-owned rather than franchising, a choice the founders credit with holding consistency together across markets as the count climbed past 40. The next stretch of growth reaches well beyond Oklahoma: alongside the Rockwell Avenue opening, the company has announced plans to enter Phoenix, Indianapolis and Minneapolis in 2026, with two locations planned in each new market.

Early on, the brand's traction owed something to an unlikely marketing channel too, Facebook groups for Mormons who had served missions in Polynesia became a genuine word-of-mouth network that helped the concept catch on in Utah before it ever left the state.

By the Numbers, Sort Of

Pinning down exactly how fast Mo' Bettahs is growing has proven tricky, with counts shifting from 63 restaurants in May 2025 to roughly 75 across seven states in early 2026, and now 82 with this latest opening. It's a company opening units fast enough that any single number is really just a snapshot.

There's still no public detail on lease terms, staffing plans or projected sales for the Rockwell Avenue location, and nothing confirmed yet about whether catering or delivery will be up and running from day one. What is set is the schedule: once open, the restaurant will run Monday through Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Sundays, the same six-day rhythm the brand keeps everywhere else.

One More Chair at the Table

For diners in northern Oklahoma City and Edmond, this means a Hawaiian plate lunch without the drive across town, courtesy of a company that has spent nearly two decades getting the format right.

For Mo' Bettahs, it's one more marker in a story that started with a single storefront in Bountiful, funded by a house that no longer exists, and has grown into nearly 80 company-owned restaurants across nine states, with new capital behind it and Phoenix, Indianapolis and Minneapolis already on the calendar.

The scale of the celebration, and the fact that Kimo and Kalani Mack still show up in person to cut the ribbon themselves, says something about how the brand sees its own growth. Even at 82 locations, it still seems to think of each new storefront as a chair pulled up to the family table, not a line item on a spreadsheet.