A retail incubator is now open in a 125-year-old, 4,155-square-foot building that survived the second big Chinatown fire — providing hope, promise and know-how for low-income Hawaii residents to start businesses and package and market their products.

Seven years in the making, the nickname for the Paradise Enterprise Center went from "against all odds to never give up," said Pacific Gateway Center Executive Director Tin Myaing Thein during yesterday’s opening ceremony.

On the ground floor at 83 N. King St., the Lemongrass Cafe has for months been feeding diners exotic and otherwise hard-to-find Burmese, Laotian and other ethnic foods from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. It is another project of the PGC, a nonprofit organization best known for its Culinary Kitchen Incubator on Umi Street in Kalihi, though it also has the Waialua Community Kitchen. Lemongrass Cafe has applied for a liquor license and likely will expand its hours soon.

Yesterday’s festivities surrounded the second-floor business center, named for Harry and Jeanette Weinberg and also sponsored by Central Pacific Bank. It is now furnished, equipped and ready to serve clients.

Several successful food-industry businesses have sprung from PGC’s programs for low-income residents and immigrants, and the goal of the new center is to hatch more microenterprises. Enrollees will receive help in obtaining general excise tax licenses and other guidance to assist in getting their products to market. The center has eight work stations, telephones, fax machines and copiers for the use of clients who cannot afford their own office setups.

The historic building required special care during its transformation, and on display at the opening were artifacts unearthed during the effort by Pacific Consulting Services Inc. and explained by Vice President Stephan Clark.

The building once housed the Yuen Chong Co., a store where many Chinese immigrants also received their mail, but along with spice bottles, Chinese ceramics and European and American ceramics and tableware were Hawaiian ulumaika (bowling) stones and a Hawaiian fishing lure. They might be permanently displayed in the center.