Pat’s at Punaluu site goes on the market for $3.5 million

A once-popular 1960s restaurant where the late singer Don Ho and other Hawaii luminaries performed was demolished Wednesday after 20 years of being vacant.

The former restaurant space at Pat’s at Punaluu, a 136-unit oceanfront condominium in Windward Oahu, is now on the market for $3.5 million.

“We’ve been trying to get a restaurant back in there for the last 10 years, and we have not been able to,” said property manager Gene Peles of Hawaiiana Management Co. “They finally found a way where they can sell the footprint of the restaurant to a developer to build single-family homes or condos.”

Richard Knake, board president of the Pat’s at Punaluu condo association, which owns the land, said it is Oahu’s only waterfront property that is fee simple and zoned for condominiums with a variance for a restaurant.

“What we are selling is the right to build,” he said. “We have subdivided an individual lot for the developer to build on. It could be a mixed use of three floors of condos and one floor of restaurant. The land is a common element that will be owned by the new developer and existing condo owners. It will have its own sub-association with its own board and own maintenance staff.”

The former restaurant at 53-567 Kamehameha Highway opened in 1962 on a 25,000-square-foot lot and was previously owned by the Hanohano family, who also owned the prawn farm across the street. The building footprint is 9,733 square feet.

Former politician and developer D.G. “Andy” Anderson had tried to purchase the property about 10 years ago, but the deal fell through while the owners sought a variance to reopen the restaurant.

Pat’s at Punaluu, founded and built by restaurateur Pat Halloran, was a kitschy establishment with old glass fishing balls, heavy nautical rigging and a menu that included Hawaiian curry, Polynesian pork and oyster pie.