Waialua carnival to feature food and lots of fun

The long-lamented chow fun from the former Sagara Store will be among popular local dishes sold at the Waialua Carnival starting Friday evening and running through the weekend.

The dish was a customer favorite at the 83-year-old family-run business across from the high school, until it closed on July 22, 2005.

“It was a very popular spot for the schoolkids and plantation workers to pick up their box lunch,” said Ray Tanabe, volunteer vice chairman of the nonprofit Waialua Festival Foundation, which stages the carnival.

One of the last family members to prepare the food and run the store will make the famed fare for the event.

“The chow fun was the first thing to sell out last year,” Tanabe said.

A huge part of the weekend festivities will be the EK Fernandez midway of rides, games and carnival fare.

But while a wide swath of the population loves the rides, food also is a massive draw, if the first 2-1/2 hours of last year’s sales are any indication.

“Last year we opened at 6 o’clock and by 8:30 we had sold $26,000 of food,” said Marsha Taylor, culinary instructor at Waialua High School and food coordinator for the carnival.

“That blew me away,” she said.

Many school-connected groups as well as some unrelated community groups will be fundraising at the carnival, offering Hawaiian plates, chili and rice, Spam bowls, bentos, shoyu hot dogs, beef stew, barbecued chicken, garlic shrimp, gandule rice, pasteles and pastele stew, bacalao salad, pork gisantes and, of course, sweets, including chocolate chip cookies and brownies.

Food items will range in price from $1 to $12, and all items will be sold for scrip. Only cash will be accepted for scrip purchases; there are plans to have an automatic teller machine on site.

Waialua High clubs and organizations will sell food to raise funds for various activities. Participants include athletic groups, the band, the school’s parent booster organization, prom organizers, peer education members and culinary students. The culinary kids will sell chocolate chip cookies, brownies and slices of pie to raise money for a study-abroad trip to Europe.

Some nonprofit organizations unaffiliated with the school also will sell food, including the Haleiwa Outrigger Canoe Club.