Kauai Farm-to-Table Dinner & More: Common Ground Review
Join a small group on a full Kauai farm-to-table experience from exploring the regenerative forest where your dinner is grown to sitting down to enjoy the meal. Common Ground Kauai also offers a Craft Cocktail & Dinner Experience and lei making workshops. If you’re a foodie or looking for a unique Kaua’i experience, this is it!
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Activity Overview
We attended Common Ground Kauai’s Farm and Food Experience in 2024. Since then, they have become well known on Kauai for their farm-to-table dinner experience. We understand why, as we thoroughly enjoyed the stone dam hike, learning about agroforestry, and enjoying the 100% Hawaiian-sourced dinner.
The kids and grandparents came with us on this tour (it is family-friendly), but I would recommend it more for couples! Since we did the tour, they have expanded to offer a craft cocktail and dinner class, lei-making workshops, and more. See below for details, our video sharing our experience, and to check availability!
Common Ground is located on Kauai’s lush North Shore, just 15 minutes from Princeville. Their tours great way to start or end a day exploring the island’s North Shore. Click here for directions: Common Ground.
Dietary Restrictions? Common Ground is happy to accommodate your dietary needs (vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian) if you notify them when booking. All of their food is gluten-free.
Common Ground welcomes children of all ages!
1. Common Ground Farm & Food Experience: Most Popular
The Experience: Common Ground’s Farm and Food Experience showcases what grows on Kauaʻi in their regenerative food forest: a collection of exotic and delicious foods brought to Hawaiʻi from all corners of the globe. Tour the regenerative farm and then sit down to a 100% island-sourced, coursed prix fixe meal.
- Price: $145 per adult, $65 for ages 6 to 12, free for ages 5 and under
- Duration: 2 hours
- Itinerary:
- Arrive 1 hour early if you’d prefer the stone dam walk
- Tour of Food Forest – 1 hour
- Exclusively Hawaii-sourced Dinner – 1 hour
- Time: Tours are offered mainly Tuesday through Saturday, starting at 5 PM
- Group Size: 25 guests
- Cash bar: Grab beer or wine from the bar to relax into a perfect island evening in a beautiful tropical farm setting.
- Who is this best for… anniversary or honeymoon travelers, first-time visitors to Kauai, families, and foodies!
1B. Four-Course Locally Harvested Dinner
With this tour option, you can skip the regenerative farm tour and go for their four-course dinner under the Lei Tent, garden side.
Same great food, but shorter and less expensive.
- Price: $135 per adult, $65 for ages 6 to 12, free for ages 5 and under
- Duration: 1.5 hours
- Itinerary:
- Arrive 1 hour early if you’d prefer the stone dam walk
- Exclusively Hawaii-sourced Dinner – 1 hour
- Time: Tours are offered mainly Tuesday through Saturday, starting at 6 PM
- Group Size: 25 guests
- What’s included
- Four-Course Locally-Harvested Meal, changing menu according to seasonal harvest
- Prix fixe menu, same as served with Farm & Food Experience and Dinner & Lei
- Fully locally-sourced and Hawaiian-grown
- Cash bar: Drinks, wine, beer, cocktails available for purchase from the bar
2. Craft Cocktail and Dinner Experience
Distillations are popping up across the islands. Distilling maintains local value, supports farmers, and weaves in historical canoe crops like sugarcane. Kauai has its famous Koloa Rum but also many more you probably haven’t experienced.
Plus, crafting cocktails when on vacation is just plain fun! Come join the local mixologists at Common Ground for an adults-only experience. Celebrate Hawaii-made spirits and chase them down with Common Ground’s signature, locally sourced, four-course farm-to-table dinner.
They’ll pour from local favorite island distilleries like Hanalei Spirits and Kō Hana Rum, along with other standout producers founded in Hawaii.
- Price: $155 per adult
- Age 21+
- Duration: 2+ hours
- Location: Lei Tent
- Itinerary:
- Craft Cocktail Experience – 1 hour
- Four-Course Exclusively Hawaii-Sourced Dinner – 1 hour
- What to Expect: Get ready to immerse yourself in some hands-on foraging, storytelling, and craft cocktails!
- Time: Tours are offered mainly Wednesday through Saturday, starting at 5 PM
- Group Size: 38 guests
- Bring comfortable shoes for walking the farm
- Who is this best for… anniversary or honeymoon travelers and foodies!
3. Lei Workshops, Farm Tours, and Dinners
Common Ground Kauai has added so many more experiences since we visited their farm!
Click the links below to learn more about their unique tours.
- Lei Workshop: Spend the morning in their lei garden. The Morning Lei Workshop is a relaxed, beautiful experience centered around one of Hawai’i’s most beloved lei traditions: making the lei po’o, a flower crown worn on the head.
- Lei Making and Dinner: Combine their lei-making workshop with their signature four-course, 100% Hawaiian-sourced dinner.
- Mornings in the Food Forest: Taste, touch, and discover what is growing in their thriving, Hawaiian agroforest. Embark on a tasting tour of tropical fruits and plants and get hands-on with the daily workings of our farm.
Video: Farm-to-Table with Common Ground Kauai
On the fence about booking this tour? Watch our experience when we took our family on this delicious and educational Kauai North Shore farm tour.
Common Ground Kauai: Our Review
Let me start with my pitch: arrive an hour early for the stone dam walk! A highlight of this tour was the short, flat 0.5-mile walk to the stone dam. You can reach the dam via the public Wai Koa Loop Trail (4.5 miles, boo!), or join us for a shorter version with a farm-to-table dinner!
The stone dam was hand-built in the 1800s to provide water to the sugar cane crops in this area. Common Ground will provide details when you arrive about making this walk. I love Kauai for the scenery and the old plantation vibes. Enjoy a walk through a meadow on the edge of a forest. The stone dam is landscaped and secluded, a perfect way to start your evening.
Farm and Food Experience Review
Spend the afternoon learning about Common Ground’s regenerative forest, filled with plants that came to Kauai from around the globe at different points in Hawaii’s history.
These include coffee, pineapple, tree tomato, kava, mamak’i, the heart of palm, papaya, bananas, and more!
They demonstrate how Hawaii could rely more on its land to provide food for the state. Your entire meal, from the oil to the spices, is grown on-site and harvested fresh for you to enjoy.
The tour through their regenerative forest is short and flat, like the stone dam hike! The guide takes the small group through each farm species. The tour guide was fun, informative, and brief. This isn’t a dragged-out tour, but a quick, highly educational experience in a new type of farming.
A regenerative forest is where every plant works in harmony to create an environment that needs no imported fertilizers or pesticides to maintain crop health.
After the tour, enjoy some cocktails or beers at their bar. The chef will showcase the night’s dinner. Because the group is so small, the buffet line moves quickly. There is plenty of food and the tables are comfortable. Our whole family enjoyed this experience.
While the price tag may seem high for a dinner, it is a unique and memorable experience thanks to the location, the farm tour, and the fresh food.
Arrive an hour early to add a walk over to the stone dam, or arrive at the start time for just the tour and dinner. Food and drinks are included in the price!
Tour a regenerative forest where every plant works in harmony to create an environment with no need for imported fertilizers or pesticides to maintain crop health.
Located on the lush north shore of Kauai, just 15 minutes from Princeville. This is a great way to end a day exploring the north slide of the island. (Click here for directions.)
All ages are welcome! This is a fun experience for kids of any age, plus it’s free for children 5 and under.
About Common Ground
Common Ground is about a lot more than a name or a farm-to-table experience. It’s about connecting people to the land and one another through an immersive experience of learning, using all of your senses, and rooting yourself in the community.
They believe food is the greatest connector and provides the basis for their mission:
We are a hospitality & lifestyle company for people eager to make a difference, that augments regenerative practices and provides immersive experiences with the goal of building a regenerative community (the Farm of the Future) where people find common ground through food as great connector.
Our goals are to invest in a circular economy of food and beverage businesses, develop a media and policy platform, demonsrate regenerative farming practices, host events and provide distribution channels for local products. The Common Ground Kauai campus serves as a lab environment that demonstrates in real time how the farm of the future can look, feel and taste.
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