Iconic Wailana Coffee House to close next month
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / 2009
Longtime Waikiki restaurant Wailana Coffee House is closing at the end of next month, according to an employee. Anita Vicente holds up the restaurant’s Jamboree Breakfast Special, including all-you-can-eat pancakes, that was offered as part of Restaurant Week.
Wailana Coffee House, the iconic 24-hour family diner in Waikiki, will close at the end of next month.
An on-duty manager confirmed the news but declined to cite a reason pending an official statement from the restaurant’s owners.
Wailana Coffee House, which employs about 100 people, is owned and operated by founder Francis Tom’s three children Kenton Tom, Malcolm Tom and Joanna Leong.
The restaurant started as a concession at the Honolulu Zoo in 1947. In 1949, Francis Tom and wife Mary re-established it as Kapiolani Drive Inn at the corner of Ala Moana Boulevard and Ena Road. Known simply as KDI, the 24-hour restaurant had a dining counter, carhop service and enough parking for 100 cars. Its large sign featuring a hula dancer and an ukulele player was one of the most recognizable sights in Waikiki.
When business began flagging, Francis Tom rebranded the business again as a family diner, based on his observation of similar businesses popular on the mainland. Wailana Coffee House, and the adjoining 24-story Wailana at Waikiki condominium complex, opened in 1969.
In the decades since, the restaurant has proven an enduring favorite of locals and visitors alike for its out-of-time charm and low-frills mix of standard diner fare and local favorites like oxtail soup, kalbi and beef stew. Its eggs Benedict has been much celebrated, as has its humble meatloaf.
Often the clientele was determined by the time of day, with tourist families arriving early for breakfast, local regulars coming for dinner and staying for an evening of karaoke in the bar, and bleary-eyed club hoppers (and the occasional time-zone refugee) staggering in for a quick bite in the pre-dawn hours.
In its heyday, the coffee house served as a late-night stop for Don Ho and other big-name Waikiki entertainers.
And just as the old Kapiolani Drive Inn served as a location in an episode of the original “Hawaii Five-0,” Wailana Coffee House has appeared twice in the CBS reboot: first in the 2012 “Hawaii Five-0” episode “I Helu Pu” and again in 2016 for the episode “Malama ka Poe,” in which lead character Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) rhapsodizes about “the best pancakes on the island, hands down.”
