Hawaii Kai residents losing BluWater Grill after Sunday

BluWater Grill restaurant in Hawaii Kai will close for good following dinner service Sunday — after about a decade of doing business.

"Their lease is close to being over," said Carl Johnsen, general manager of Hawaii Kai Shopping Center, where the restaurant overlooks the Hawaii Kai marina. Johnsen was involved in "making that deal" for locating the restaurant there, "and it worked out great."

Owner Tanya Phillips could not be reached, but Johnsen said she had been talking about making some changes to the restaurant.

The eatery was established by longtime Ryan’s Grill alumni, including Phillips and chef and co-owner William Bruhl, according to a Star-Bulletin restaurant review from 2004. Phillips and her daughter are now the only partners listed under parent company Jawbone LLC.

"The market is definitely going to miss BluWater Grill," said Johnsen.

Those who have gotten married at the restaurant, as depicted on the BluWater Grill Facebook page, will likely wax nostalgic about their special day there.

Clearly, those who have posted online reviews raving about their experiences at the restaurant will miss it, though rave reviews posted in recent months have become less common, online research showed.

Nevertheless, even the less-than-glowing reviews mention the great outdoor, marina-front ambience for daylight or sunset enjoyment.

The venue promoted itself as the best place to watch the Hawaii Kai Fourth of July fireworks and the Christmastime boat parade.

Over the summer, the restaurant used its Facebook page to ask online friends to "support BWG efforts to get a small business grant" by casting votes on a website established by Chase Bank USA and LivingSocial Inc. Some 70,000 businesses and 3.1 million consumers later, the restaurant was not among the 12 recipients of $250,000 grants.

Whether any connection exists between the grant appeal and the restaurant’s closure could not be established, as Phillips was unavailable.

Around 30 employees staff the restaurant, said manager Sarah Oishi.

Hawaii’s low, and that’s good

Hooray! Hawaii’s not the most expensive place in which to have a wedding!

That distinction goes to Manhattan, N.Y., where the average wedding in 2012 cost $76,687.

At least we’re not the costliest place for everything.

Rather, the Aloha State is barely in the top 20, coming in at No. 19 in 2012 with an average wedding cost of $29,636.

Of the 50 states, Alaska was the least expensive place to get married last year, according to all the data compiled by TheKnot.com and WeddingChannel.com.

The sister websites are all about weddings, while another sibling site is called TheBump.com — as you may have guessed, it’s all about "being in the family way," as our elders might have euphemized.

The sites’ study is based not on DIY brides’ experiences, but on those who used the services of wedding planners.

One other Hawaii wedding tidbit is that the average age of a bride getting married here is 33, the oldest in the survey, versus the youngest average age of 25, in Utah.

Lest you fret about the size of your guest list, Nevada brides average 64 wedding guests (the smallest number), versus Utah brides, who have the largest number of guests on average — at 209.

TheKnot.com has, within its site, an infographic with many of the study’s details that brides- and grooms-to-be might need. Go to is.gd/slZkz5.
 

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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.