Alan Wong’s Pineapple Room at Ala Moana to close after 18 years

The Pineapple Room by Alan Wong will serve its last customers July 29 as its 18-year run at Macy’s, and Liberty House before that, comes to an end at Ala Moana Center.

“Macy’s and us, we have amicably agreed to part ways,” Wong said without discussing specifics. In a statement released Monday morning by his office, he observed that the dining landscape has changed.

Macy’s District Vice President Deena Nichols is out all week, according to her office, and was unavailable for comment.

Wong’s high-end King Street restaurant, where former President Barack Obama and many a famous client have dined, is open only for dinner.

“The Pineapple Room was a casual concept, versus the King Street concept, and for that reason, most of our customers were local people. We had a lot of aunties and uncles, grandmas and grandpas, and hosted many special occasions (such as) birthdays, anniversaries, graduations. We’ve had companies come and celebrate, and so we’ve created many friends and memories through the years,” he said.

The Pineapple Room “was born out of an idea that one of our chefs wanted to be the chef of his own restaurant,” and Wong put that chef, Steven Ariel, in charge of running the restaurant.

“We’ve also had a bunch of people, employees, and managers and (other) chefs come through here and work at the Pineapple Room, and a lot have gone on to bigger and better things, partly due to their time at the Pineapple Room,” he said. “Everything comes to an end, and the time has come to say ‘aloha,’” Wong said.

The number of employees to be affected by the closure was not immediately available, but Wong said his staff is one of his biggest concerns right now. They are eligible to apply for positions with the King Street restaurant.

The pending job losses come at a time of near record-low unemployment when restaurants have been staging multiple job fairs to hire staff, or seating guests in only a portion of the restaurant so the existing staff can serve them properly.

Wong’s relationship with Liberty House also included a two-year run of the Hawaii Regional Cuisine Marketplace on the Ala Moana Center store’s fourth floor, where Wong and his culinary team sold chocolates, candy, ice cream and sorbet, cake, pie and artisanal bread they had made, among other goods.

Just as the Pineapple Room was overseen by one of Wong’s chefs who had a dream, the marketplace was run by Wong’s then-pastry chef, Mark Okumura.

The Pineapple Room opened on the third level of Liberty House in 1999. The restaurant stayed open through the transition when Macy’s bought the former Hawaii-based, statewide department store.

Wong was nonspecific about what might come next for his company, which also operates a namesake restaurant location in Shanghai. “I’m always on the lookout” for the right opportunity, he said.