Scott Shibuya is happy to have taken the risk to make the jump to a brick-and-mortar location for his Guava Smoked business a year ago.

"It takes time, but we’re always going in the right direction," he said. "I feel happy. I’m really happy, starting this up."

Meats are smoked in-house and are served as part of Guava Smoked’s plate lunch and catering offerings from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.

The smoking is done on Sundays, which is why the restaurant is closed that day.

Opening a 1,700-square-foot restaurant and permanent smoking facility was a big step up from doing just the farmers market and community event circuit, using a converted U.S. Air Force cargo container as a smoker.

After three years of that, positive feedback from customers and time to save up money for a retail location, he was ready, he thought.

He bought a used bakery proofer, into which bakers would roll racks of dough to allow, say, loaves of bread to rise, and converted it into a smoker, which is fueled with invasive strawberry guava wood (wai­awi).

It might help to know that Shi­buya is a former Air Force and United Airlines aircraft mechanic.

His first smoker could hold about 600 pounds of meat, whereas the new equipment can accommodate 1,500 pounds, he said.

It is so much larger than his previous smoker that he was able to smoke whole turkeys for Thanksgiving, and will do more for Christmas, he said.

The turkeys are 12- to 14-pound hens, which he cold-smokes, vacuum-seals and freezes. Customers pick them up, defrost them for two days and follow Shi­buya’s instructions for preparation, with specific advice to heat the birds breast side down, "to keep the breast juicy." The turkeys sell for $40.

While turkey has been the focus lately, given the Thanksgiving from which you likely are still recovering, Shi­buya’s more traditional smoked offerings include mild or spicy pork, mild or spicy pork burgers, kalbi ribs, chicken legs, boneless and skinless chicken thighs, turkey tails, duck, salmon bellies and, perhaps more unusual, smoked butterfish collars.

On Oahu smoked butterfish collars are pretty unusual, he said, but apparently not for people on Kauai.

The whole idea for the business came from Kauai, where his brother-in-law and other relatives are hunters "and always use guava wood" to smoke meats.

Shibuya encouraged them to make a business because the meats were so tasty, but was told that so many people on Kauai hunt and smoke their own meat, it wouldn’t make sense.

"I asked him, ‘What about if I could use your recipe?’ because on Oahu smoked meat is hard to get; you’ve got to know somebody," Shi­buya said.

And now you know somebody on Oahu who smokes meat.

People from all over have caught on to his smoky offerings.

His varied clientele includes industrial-area workers, a natural given where his business is located just makai of Nimitz Highway off Kalihi Street, but "about half the clientele is the more white-collar, ‘downtown’ crowd," he said. "I was kind of amazed at that."

Some of them even place large orders to take back to the office, Shi­buya said. Military types from Hickam and Pearl Harbor also frequent the drive-in, as do workers from Kame­ha­meha Schools, way up mauka in Kapa­lama.

He never intended to get into the restaurant business, because both his father and his grandfather had a restaurant and he saw what their lives were like.

"I don’t mind hard work," but it was not the life he envisioned for himself, Shi­buya said.

He joined the Air Force, then got licensed to work on civilian aircraft and got a job as a mechanic with United Airlines.

That was before his 10-year teaching career.

He taught graphics at Kai­muki High School, his alma mater. "After about eight years I was thinking about starting my own business."

Unable to escape the DNA coursing through his system, he started Guava Smoked, which still appears at two weekly farmers markets and will be at the Islandwide Christmas Crafts and Food Expo this weekend.

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“Buy Local” runs on Aloha Fridays. Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.