Sep 8, 2013 - 2 min read

Shakey's Pizza

Celebrating 40 Years in Kadena Town

By Michael Flemming

Community writer

Shakey's Pizza has been in Kadena Town for 40 years; originally it was in a stand alone restaurant but is now a tenant inside the sprawling Navel Kadena shopping Center

Once you can see the Navel Kadena signs, you will know you are in the right place

Once in the Navel Kadena shopping center, look for the building with the Shakey' sign on the exterior

There is usually a 40 minute wait to get into Shakey's on any given day. Sign in and look around the many Naval Kadena shops until seating becomes available

The palm trees in the dining area of Shakey's give the parlor an Okinawan feel

I highly recommend the lunch buffet for the value and variety costing just 980 yen for adults, but Shakey's also offers small, medium and large pizzas for dining in or take out

Curry rice and soup in the foreground are only available during the lunch buffet; the drink bar offers sodas, teas, frozen slush drinks and coffee

The buffet includes drinks, curry rice, soup. deserts, pizza, pasta, and fried potatoes, but salad is not included other than salad pizza

Shakey's has all of the usual varieties of pizza and a few you may not have tried before, like corn pizza

Hot lamps keep pizza warm along the buffet, but the pies don't remain too long as the line is busy and the staff is continuously adding new pizzas in to the mix

It's a bit perplexing but refreshing at the same time to see a few of the beloved but now defunct franchise restaurants of my youth thriving here on Okinawa. The Shakey's Pizza Parlor next to my high school in Arizona closed down in the late 1980s; but there are a growing number of locations here on Okinawa that endure despite stateside tastes and managerial expertise being largely absent. The Kadena Town Shakey's Pizza Parlor celebrates its 40th year on Okinawa in 2013. The restaurant at one time was a stand alone eatery along Route 58 but now has grown into a location inside the popular Navel Kadena shopping Center. Shakey's offers a lunch time buffet, take out, and dining ala carte in the late afternoon and evenings. The lunch buffet includes soup, curry rice, drinks, pasta, pizza and deserts for 980 yen for adults, 750 yen for teenagers, 400 yen for twelve and under, and free for children three and under. Pies are offered in a "traditional" thin crust or in a thicker New York style crust. Small personal size pizzas start at less than 800 yen while large pizzas top out at about 2,300 yen. Beer, soft drinks, tea and coffee are about 200 yen or more each. Salads, pastas and appetizers vary according to size for 200 yen to 800 yen each. Shakey's Pizza at Navel Kadena is open daily from 10:00 ~ 22:00. Exact buffet hours vary slightly on holidays and weekends.