Award-winning chef and restaurateur Sean Priester is in talks for new restaurant space in the Remington College building at 1111 Bishop St. in downtown Honolulu, after closing his Soul restaurant at 3040 Waialae Ave. on July 1.
Priester said Soul was current on its lease obligations, but the location "was just becoming a burden." He was sustaining the restaurant through his mobile food truck operations and decided "I don’t have to pay such a premium to do it," he said.
He had been searching for a kitchen "to just pursue the mobile division" but then learned of the street-level downtown location, and it presented "an opportunity for me to have a revenue stream" and continue the food truck side of the business.
Building asset manager Jim Steiner said Friday the negotiations are ongoing but that at that moment there was no signed lease.
Active in social media, Priester alerted customers June 30 that service at Soul in Kaimuki would end that weekend but that the popular Soul Patrol food truck still would be making the rounds serving Priester’s Hawaii-nuanced Southern food.
On July 3, Priester alerted customers that it was the "opening day of the Soul Patrol road show," that Soul Patrol would be in Manoa, run by operations manager Randy Linville, while Priester was in Kakaako at the John A. Burns School of Medicine.
Soul Patrol also frequents the Kapiolani Community College Saturday morning farmers market.
"We’re doing at least six events a week," he said, "doing the food truck thing, farmers markets — there’s about half a dozen of those — and then catering as well," he said.
Soul Patrol also participates in monthly Eat the Street events with a host of other food trucks.
Respected online food guide Gayot.com named Soul Patrol one of its 2012 Top 10 Hawaii Food Truck Restaurants, describing its Southern comfort fare as being "infused with a bit of ‘aloha.’"
For the past several months the Kaimuki Soul restaurant received mixed reviews — from raves to increasingly negative rants about bad experiences with food quality and service.
One diner identifying herself as Jessica S. on Yelp decried the food’s inconsistency during "the past few times I’ve been there," and described her experience.
Unlike most amateur reviewers online, she made the effort to contact Priester, and included their email exchange as part of her May 7 posting.
The reply from Priester she shared went as follows: "I agree and I am frustrated by your experience as well. I am looking at changing direction with our operations, focussing on catering, the Soul Patrol and mobile events, limiting our hours of operations to weekends. I would like to personally host your next visit if you would ever allow me that opportunity again. Mahalo for your feedback, Sean."
Priester said he has "stopped reading Yelp."
"To be honest with you, being out there in the community, I did lose touch with the restaurant, but I think it’s twofold."
"I think Groupon kind of killed Soul and cheapened the products," Priester said, adding that "Groupon uses Yelpers and they kill you with reviews. … I don’t think it was at all deserved."
Priester defends his vision, his food, his quality and his brand. "What I do is relevant and viable," he said.
Closing the restaurant was "kind of a dramatic move." Nevertheless, from his award-winning days at Top of Waikiki, which allowed him to "validate my skills as an executive chef," to the best-new-restaurant accolade Soul won its first year out, "I’m really happy that I took all these leaps of faith in my life, and I continue to strive for my success to be, again, relevant."
———
Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
