Event organizer leases Fisherman’s Wharf site

The local organizer of food, entertainment and shopping events including Hono­lulu Night Market and Eat the Street is expanding to a waterfront location at the former Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant site at Kewalo Basin.

Street Grindz LLC has leased the 5-acre site from the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs for the next 3 1/2 years while OHA prepares a master plan for the property and another 25 acres in the area that it received from the state in 2012.

Street Grindz representative Christine Gomez said the lot will be used to provide new opportunities for the company’s network of food and retail vendors on a daily basis, though what exactly will pop up on the site remains to be fleshed out.

Gomez said the vision is to create a marketplace experience and food destination working off of a "plug-and-play" model.

"It will be a place for community and commerce to convene daily," she said in an email.

Current Street Grindz events won’t move to the Fisherman’s Wharf lot, but will stay where they are in Kaka­ako, Gomez added.

Honolulu Night Market is held on the third Saturday of every month at 449 Cooke St. Eat the Street, a food truck gathering staged on the last Friday of every month, was recently displaced from its usual spot at 555 South St. but is moving to Kaka­ako Gateway Park at 677 Ala Moana Blvd.

Street Grindz expects to have the old Fisherman’s Wharf property ready for use in the summer. OHA demolished the restaurant building in November after concluding that it would be too costly to rehabilitate for interim use. The seafood restaurant was in business from 1952 to 2009.

Street Grindz, which was founded as a small event planning service in 2010, has been working with OHA on planning and conceptualizing future plans for the agency’s Kaka­ako makai lands.

Kamana‘opono Crabbe, OHA CEO, described the company’s dining concepts as exciting and interesting. "This interim use will help make our Kaka­ako makai lands a gathering place while we continue to work on a master plan for future development," he said in a statement.