My wife and I were on a Japan cruise in May. Aboard the Diamond Princess, giving ukulele and hula lessons and performing Hawaiian music, were the local duo Makani E — husband-and-wife team Kimo and Lokelina Lowry. It was a pleasant surprise.

Makani E had 50 ukulele on the ship and gave lessons three times in an eight-day cruise. More than 200 came for three sets of hula lessons.

Lokelina told me that when she was younger she danced at Honey’s in Kaneohe. Honey was Don Ho’s mother, and her bar was where Don Ho got his start. It was more out of necessity than anything else.

I saw Don’s show many times and wrote about him in his prime. Recently I began to look at his roots, and what I found surprised me.

Pomai Souza, in his Tasty Island blog, says that Honey’s was on the corner of Kamehameha Highway and Lilipuna Road, in front of the Kaneohe Bay Shopping Center. Farrell’s took over the location after Honey’s, then it became Smitty’s Pancake House. Today it’s a Central Pacific Bank branch.

Honey was born Emily Leimaile Silva (1912-2003). She and her husband, Jimmy Ho, opened Honey’s in 1939 when she was 27.

The restaurant/bar did well during World War II, but after it was over and many of the servicemen left, the business declined.

In 1959 Jimmy Ho asked Don to come and help. Don was in the Air Force on the mainland at the time.

“It was a big change, giving up steady paycheck, flying airplanes in the military,” Don recalled, “and coming home to a bar that was empty and trying to reignite the family business.

“The only thing we had was Honey’s, and Dad and Mom’s only customers seemed to be their friends, and most of them were old.

“My dad said, ‘Why don’t you play music, son?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, right, Dad.’ But my dad had a way of influencing me in very subtle ways because I did it. I went and did it.

“I did not know how to play the guitar. I did not know how to play the ukulele. I did know how to play the keyboard a little bit.

“There is always music when I was growing up,” Don recalled. “My mom and my auntie singing at the bar when they were mad at my father. The jukebox when I was a kid. Growing up was a kaleidoscope of different music.”

Doris Ho Castro, Don’s sister, said, “When Don got into entertaining at Honey’s after he got out of the service, I didn’t even know he had a voice.“

“I don’t have the greatest voice in the world,” Don agreed. “Some people like it. Some don’t. And the little Hammond organ I was playing, people said it was a toy, said it wasn’t professional. And I didn’t know nothing about music. I was a dodo.

“The key was that it was my mother’s joint, so I could do what I want. I can sing or not. The other secret was to hire only the best musicians. The key to my success is having people around me who are better than me. ”

Don invited customers to sing or dance hula. “I’d call them on the stage just like at a family luau. They would come to the joint all the time. It was like karaoke, except live.”

Honey’s was far from town in those days. “They didn’t have the puka in the mountains then,” Don said in his book, “My Music My Life.” “They had to come over the mountain on a two-lane road.”

Some military people came but it was mostly locals attending. Some would bring girlfriends, thinking it was so far, their wives couldn’t track them down, Don believed.

Singer Nina Kealiiwahamana said that Sterling Mossman at Queen’s Surf in Waikiki was one of Don’s role models. “Don started doing the same thing that Sterling Mossman was doing at the Barefoot Bar at the Queen’s Surf, where, if he had visiting entertainers in the bar, he would call them up.

“Mossman was doing it for many years in Waikiki, and Don picked it up. What made Don so wonderful was that he could recognize talent.

“I went to Honey’s every week, and he called me onto the stage along with everybody else. Was just one great big party,” said Kealiiwahamana.

Lokelina Lowry, whom I met with her husband, Kimo, in Japan, says she hung out at Honey’s in the mid-1970s with her family.

“Honey’s was a wonderful place. It was such a relaxed atmosphere. My grandma understood that I really loved music in every sense, and would tell me to get up and sing this song or dance. The first time I got up, I was scared. After that it flowed.

“I can remember Don Ho’s interaction with the audience. He would have a good old time, and so would they.

“It was out of necessity that he came to Honey’s to help his family,” Lowry says. “He became an entertainer despite having an average voice and only rudimentary organ skills.

“He knew how to connect with his audience and bring them on stage to perform. He was more the ringleader than a performer.”

Soon Don was asked whether he could replace Sterling Mossman, who was going on a two-week vacation from the Queen’s Surf, and the rest was history.

The world “discovered” Don Ho, and he performed for decades in Waikiki and around the world. But Honey’s is where he first found his groove.

Honey’s closed in Kaneohe in the 1970s, but then something interesting happened 20 years later. Don and his wife, Haumea, liked to golf at the Koolau Golf Course in the late 1990s and have lunch in the restaurant after.

Former manager Gary Muraoka was a neighbor and friend of Don’s. He asked Don whether he could use the name Honey’s to keep the memories of it alive. Don said he could. No money was involved.

The grand opening was in June 1998, says current food and beverage director Peter Bellisario. Honey, Don and 50 others attended, many getting up to sing or dance.

Today Honey’s serves lunch and dinner seven days a week, and there are many photos of Don, Honey and performers who have a connection to Honey’s.

As an homage to the original Honey’s, they feature classic Hawaiian music two or three nights a week.

Bob Sigall, author of the Companies We Keep books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.