Almost pau: Ono Hawaiian Foods bows out after 57 years

The tiny, 35-seat local institution that is Ono Hawaiian Foods will serve its last customers in a little more than a week — after nearly six decades as a family business.

The walls of the Kapahulu restaurant are covered with all 57 years of that history, including celebrity head shots, snapshots of founding family members and longtime customers, old concert posters and more bric-a-brac collected over time.

The faces on the walls account for but a tiny fraction of the countless plates filled with kalua pig, laulau or chicken long rice, not to mention combination plates and a la carte items that have been served over the generations.

The word “plate” for the first four menu items is a bit of a misnomer. Not even a luau tray could contain the portions of pipikaula, lomi salmon, haupia, rice or poi served with the main item.

The selections are presented in a series of bowls and plates, with additional dishware provided for sharing.

Ono’s final day of service will be Aug. 26.

Word of the closure got out in late May, and since then the cash-only restaurant has been “busy all the way through,” from its 11 a.m. opening through its 8 p.m. closing, Mondays through Saturdays, said company President Vivian Lee.

The morning sun is bright and hot on the restaurant’s entrance, so umbrellas are provided to customers lined up outside waiting for tables to open up.

Many avoid the wait by calling in to-go orders. Carole Hayashino, president and executive director of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, preordered 10 frozen laulau to take as omiyage on a trip. When she picked up the order recently, she said her mainland friends had been clamoring for the laulau.

Ono was established in the early 1960s by Sueko Miyagi Oh Young and later run by her son, Toyo, now deceased. Several family members have been involved in the restaurant for its generations of operation and still come in to help, said Lee. She is not related, but has worked for the company for some 50 years and is treated like a member of the family, Lee said.

Other employees — seven or eight depending on a shift’s needs — also have been there for decades.

They are all “getting to the age where they want to relax and enjoy life,” Lee said.

The decision not to sell the restaurant provides a clean ending, to everyone’s satisfaction, she said.

The important thing now is to go out with gratitude.

“If we don’t have customers, there’s no business,” Lee said. “If we don’t have employees, there’s no business. We just need to say thank you to everyone.”

The restaurant space will be renovated in September and October and is slated to reopen Nov. 1.

“The tenants, they’ll be carrying the same kind of Hawaiian food,” said the broker, Realtor associate Christy Kim of Century 21.

She declined to name the new tenant.

CUSTOMER FAVORITES

Not everyone, not even every couple, is capable of finishing an entire Ono Hawaiian Foods “plate” alone. Enter a la carte choices, including the extremely popular salt meat watercress ($16.90), served in a large bowl of broth with hunks of meat and a generous piling of watercress on top.

Other options include chicken luau, lomi salmon in two sizes, tripe stew, chop steak (Mondays only), fried fish or poke (market priced), and many other selections ranging from $1.30 for an order of haupia (four pieces), up to $16.90 for salt meat luau.

What to choose? Longtime customers name their favorites:

>> Laulau

The tender pork laulau is what Alice Matsumoto of Kaimuki will miss the most, she said. She was seated with her daughter Joy, friend Akiko Yokoi visiting from Osaka, Japan, as well as ex-pat family friends who arrived earlier that morning from Las Vegas.

Large bundles of luau leaves are stuffed with pork and butterfish, in the traditional manner. But the taste of Ono’s laulau sets it apart from other places, she said. Bart and Joan Martinez and daughter and son-in-law Jan and Andrew Dale were digging into the long-missed but dearly familiar flavors.

>> Squid luau

Joan Martinez’s eyes grew big and dreamy when she spoke of Ono’s squid luau, actually made of tender slices of octopus, swimming in luau leaves and coconut milk.

The Vegas resident can get Hawaiian food on the ninth island, but the flavor is different because sometimes ingredients must be substituted, she said.

Upon being seated, her son-in-law Andrew Dale reached immediately for the chili pepper water, so it would be in close proximity when the food arrived.

“Take it easy,” he was instructed.

>> Lomi ahi

This is a simple dish of fish cut into a small dice, massaged with Hawaiian salt and other flavorings, then served with onion. Still, “you can’t get it everywhere,” said Sheldeen Kaneakua, from Kaimuki.

“It’s chunks of ahi,” she said, garnishing her bowl with more white and green onion. Kaneakua also is fond of the chicken long rice.

Her dining companion, Ben Carvalho from Pearl City, was enjoying the laulau plate, which many other diners also cited as their favorite.