Meat Lovers Need To Make Room For This Massive Honolulu Sandwich

Hawaii has a number of incredible restaurants to check out, but if you're on the hunt for a huge sandwich that's more meat than anything else, Machete's Mean Sandwiches has just the ticket. The Honolulu-based deli's claim to fame is a meat-centric sandwich sharing the same name: The Machete. It starts with your choice of cracked wheat or homestyle white bread smeared with mayonnaise, which is then topped with more than half a pound of high-quality assorted deli meats. 

Layers of roasted turkey, smoked Black Forest ham, Genoa salami, and Romanian red pastrami fill the monstrous sandwich, along with provolone and Vermont cheddar cheese, onions, lettuce, and tomatoes, finished with Italian vinaigrette. Regulars can't stop talking about the bread in particular, which is baked fresh every day. "When I say their bread is in high demand, other companies [have] asked if they could pay Machete for their bread," one Reddit user shares.

Machete's Mean Sandwiches is a family affair, run by husband and wife Evan and Rachel Glenn, along with her brother, Jean Lambert. The Californian clan opened the sandwich shop back in 2017, inspired by Evan's admiration for jumbo sandwiches. "My husband kept making his sandwiches bigger and bigger," Rachel tells Honolulu Magazine. "You needed a machete to cut it." That spirit of go big or go home has embodied the shop ever since day one, growing into one of the island's favorite lunchtime pit stops. In February 2025, they even expanded to a second location in Honolulu.

Beyond The Machete, the menu is stacked with filling favorites, from the pastrami to the turkey bacon ranch. They also feature local flavors, like the shoyu marinated tuna sandwich and a generously stuffed veggie sandwich with avocado, cream cheese, lettuce, cucumber, and tomato for when you need a break from deli meats. Whatever you order, it will arrive on that legendary house-baked bread and likely stretch into two meals. There are so many Hawaiian foods to try, but sometimes you just need a sandwich the size of your head.