Friday the 13th will be unlucky for any person in the restaurant and food service industry who is not nominated for induction to the Hawaii Restaurant Association Hall of Fame — because they’ll have no chance of winning this year.
Nominees must have contributed to the image and quality of the industry in Hawaii; provided service to the industry through civic, philanthropic or educational outreach; and must have demonstrated dedication and commitment to the growth of the industry.
Previous inductees have included all 12 members of Hawaii Regional Cuisine Inc., which put Hawaii’s food scene on the global map, as well as Seiichi and Sachiko Toguchi, founders of Highway Inn; Don Murphy, proprietor of Murphy’s Bar & Grill and ardent University of Hawaii athletics supporter; and Aiko Hamura, co-founder of iconic Hamura Saimin Inc. on Kauai.
HRA has more information on the criteria and nomination forms available online.
NOT ALL THAT GLITTERS …
Hawaii usually gets top placement on travel and tourism industry lists, but not always.
From the "they can’t all be gems" department, a recent TripAdvisor.com list of "Travelers’ Choice Hotels for Families" has not a single Hawaii resort or hotel among the top 25 in the U.S.
KeyLime Cove Resort and Water Park in Gurnee, Ill., got the top spot on that list, while New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, California, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Virginia got all the shine. Disney properties figure prominently on the list.
TripAdvisor.com compiled several other geographically arranged lists of top family resorts, but Hawaii is not part of those regions, so naturally no Hawaii resorts were on those lists, either.
There’s always the next list.
RYAN RERUN
It is fair to say that more people have seen Hilo native Ryan Higa on YouTube than saw the interview he did on PBS Hawaii’s "Long Story Short" with CEO Leslie Wilcox.
Fair, because the show first aired Jan. 3 during the busy holiday season.
It is also fair to say because Higa’s viral videos have received more than 1 billion views on the Internet. His YouTube channel became a sensation and led to production of the feature-length film "Ryan and Sean’s Not So Excellent Adventure."
That also was not seen by as many people as have visited Higa’s YouTube channel.
Higa first posted funny, silly, satirical videos while a student at Waiakea High School on Hawaii island, but the habit followed him to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Higa’s story and accompanying merriment will be rebroadcast on PBS Hawaii at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Because so many of his fans are accustomed to seeing Higa on smaller screens, and probably for other reasons as well, the encore performance of the show also will be live-streamed on the PBS Hawaii website.
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
