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Love’s Bakery announced it is closing later this month after 170 years in business. The bakery operated under the reigns of six royal monarchs, the provisional government, the republic of Hawaii, 12 territorial governors and eight state governors.
It survived several fires, the Civil War, two world wars, the influenza epidemic of 1918 and bubonic plague and smallpox outbreaks.
Robert Love Sr. founded it as a tiny coffee shop on the Ewa side of Nuuanu Avenue, just makai of Pauahi Street in 1851. His pastry was a revelation to island folks who had eaten poi rather than bread as their staff of life.
The missionaries had brought flour with them, then grew a limited amount of wheat on Maui.
In 1851, when Love began, Honolulu was quite different from today. Kamehameha III was king, living in the smaller, original Iolani Palace. Important buildings included Kawaiaha‘o Church, Our Lady of Peace Cathedral and Washington Place.
Honolulu was the area bounded by the harbor and Beretania, Punchbowl and River streets. Only about 10,000 residents lived there.
In 1851 the first Chinese laborers arrived in the islands. The first post office opened and the first stamps were printed.
Love appears to have been the first to bring in a large amount of flour from Seattle and San Francisco. By 1854 the first steam engine on Oahu was in operation, milling wheat into flour, at Nuuanu and Queen streets.
In 1856 Love’s Bakery offered 12 loaves of fresh bread for a dollar. Hardtack was an early product — a biscuit of sorts — for whalers. Then he made cakes, cookies, pies and pastries. Deliveries to other stores were made by handcart and wheelbarrow.
Love died in 1858, just seven years into the company’s history. He was 42. His three sons, ages 22, 18 and 15, took over and ran the company.
Saloon Pilot
The bakery’s 1952 book — printed to celebrate its first 100 years — says Love’s developed the Saloon Pilot cracker, made with flour, salt, water and shortening, in the 1860s.
Love’s outgrew its Nuuanu location and moved to Iwilei in 1932. It erected a new building where Oahu Prison had been.
“When the old prison was closed, the government broke the land up into lots,” historian Wendy Tolleson says. “But for some reason there was a proviso that the mauka prison wall could not be torn down, thus the lots that Love’s bought were oddly shaped, but they got them cheap at auction. A portion of the wall can still be seen near the morgue.”
Love’s opened a branch in Glendale, Calif., in 1931 with three salesmen, a truck and a driver. It sold products with Hawaiian names such as Hiki No, Nuku Nuku and Waikiki Sandwich bread for a few years.
Wonder Bread
When World War II began, there was a tremendous need for bread and baked goods. Love’s operated three shifts, 24 hours a day.
To keep up with demand, it opened a new plant in 1943 at 836 Kapahulu Ave., where Safeway is today. Five years later its Love’s Wonder Bread Bakery was put into operation.
At the time, the company says, it was the world’s largest bread-baking oven. The 144-foot-long oven could turn out 8,000 loaves an hour. Schoolchildren and the general public were invited for tours.
The Iwilei branch focused on biscuit and crackers, and it could churn out 1,200 pounds of them per hour. The building still exists and has been occupied by the Salvation Army since 1965.
Flying bakery truck
Love’s began flying fresh-baked bread to neighbor islands by charter in 1945, calling it the “flying bakery truck.”
The bakery later switched to Aloha Airlines, filling six planes a day with baked goods, but faced a challenge when Aloha went out of business in 2008. Over 2,000 pounds of fresh bakery products sat in the airport tarmac with no way of getting to Kauai and the Big Island.
The solution? Love’s sent it to Los Angeles on Delta Air Lines where it then caught separate flights to the correct neighbor island.
Top Hat
David Arakaki said: “During the early 1940s my mother would send me to the neighborhood mom-and-pop grocery store to buy a loaf of Love’s bread. The bread was called Top Hat, and it cost 9 cents.
“We didn’t have peanut butter or jelly. Oleomargarine was promoted during World War II because butter was not available. I would smear some oleo on a slice of bread and either sprinkle sugar or powdered Ghirardelli chocolate to make an ono snack.”
Nadine’s Donuts
Historian Sandy Hall told me: “Duke’s wife, Nadine Kahanamoku, was a very close friend of mine, who I met when she was in her late 80s. She always had a good appetite, and I don’t recall her ever saying that there was a food she disliked.
“She loved the Happy Cakes at Kemoo Farm in Wahiawa, loved garlic, loved Australian Violet Crumble Bars, dried ginger and sashimi. She ate very ‘mindfully’ — chewing her food very slowly, savoring it, with her eyes closed, and saying, ‘Mmmm, mmmm, that’s so good.’
“One of her very favorite foods was doughnuts with chocolate icing from the Love’s Kapahulu store. She did not like them being bought for her — she liked to be driven there.
“When we arrived at the Love’s store in a rather jaded parking lot with potholes, her enthusiasm was contagious. Her ritual was to take her time looking at everything and wondering ‘What will I have today?’ before deciding on always the same box of doughnuts with chocolate icing.
“I think the box had four doughnuts and was a cheerful red with one side panel listing all the ingredients in tiny print, that she had no interest in reading.
“She insisted on holding the box on her knee as we drove to her home at Black Point. She would set it aside on the kitchen counter — for the next day. She had admirable self-control. She said she loved the anticipation of waking up, knowing she had a Love’s doughnut treat awaiting her.
“I never actually saw her eating a doughnut. I do know that she said there were always ‘a few crumbs left over to share with the birds in the backyard.’
“They loved Love’s doughnuts, too!”
Hall is working on a biography of Duke Kahanamoku and has frequently contributed to Rearview Mirror.
A party at the bank
Roberta McCormick said: “My fondest Love’s Bakery memory would be back in the mid-1960s and ’70s when Love’s Bakery was located in Kapahulu.
“As an employee with Bank of Hawaii, the Kapahulu Branch, we got to know many of the Love’s employees, who became like family to us. Each and every Love’s Bakery’s payday, our bank would have a sea of the men and women in their red-and-white plaid, palaka shirts lined up in the bank lobby to cash or deposit their checks.
“It was like a party having them in the bank! There was one employee of Love’s Bakery I especially remember fondly, Harold Fukunaga, a very gregarious man and a joy to see and serve at Bank of Hawaii.
“I hope and pray that somehow someone can save Love’s Bakery. I and many others grew up with Love’s, and it’s sooo very sad to hear it’s closing. I am sure there are many people who have their favorite baked goodies they will miss.
“Like Nadine, Duke’s wife, we all have our favorites! I like the powdered sugar or cake doughnut, the Roman Meal breads for all the goodness and taste. My sister likes the doughnuts … all of them!
“I’m running out to get more bread and doughnuts to freeze and save!”
Have a question or suggestion? Contact Bob Sigall, author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books, at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
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