A landmark for over 50 years, and once the Leeward area’s swankiest place to dine, the Pearl City Tavern began in 1940 when only 800 people lived in Pearl City. It started as Mae’s Drive Inn a block away and moved to the corner of Kamehameha Highway and Lehua Avenue.
Mae’s Drive Inn was named for owners Irene and George Fukuoka’s daughter.
A May 1940 Mae’s Drive Inn menu offered main dishes such as roast turkey (50 cents), lamb chops (35 cents), beef stew with rice (30 cents), corned beef and cabbage (35 cents) or T-bone steak (70 cents).
In August 1940, Mae’s Drive Inn became the Pearl City Tavern. A wave of military personnel was about to descend on Pearl Harbor and the tavern, in particular, during the war years. The place developed a reputation as a gambling den.
The tavern was famous for its Monkey Bar, which began as a misnomer. The Fukuokas had several different animals, including a gorilla. Patrons began referring to the bar as the Monkey Bar, and after the gorilla died, they put 20 actual squirrel monkeys in a glass enclosure behind the bar. The question patrons would ask was, “Who was watching who — the monkeys or the people?”
George’s brother, Jerry, was the head chef, and he was highly regarded. His bread, sandwiches, soups and steaks were outstanding. The tavern served American, Japanese and Cantonese dishes by four head chefs in four kitchens.
It had a rooftop garden with a bonsai and orchid collection. “We’d climb a winding staircase and find ourselves in this beautiful, romantic setting on the roof,” said Keiki Kani Music Studio owner Camilla Corpuz Yamamoto.
Great memory
Robert Kawai remembered “a Japanese waiter who did not write your orders, but remembered all of them, even for a large group.”
His name was Hideo Miyashiro, and he was a waiter at the Pearl City Tavern for 20 years. “He never writes down customers’ orders, no matter how many he’s serving. And he seldom makes a mistake,” said George Fukuoka. “He was a human computer.”
Glass eye discount?
Dennis Takeshita said: “My mother was a waitress at the Pearl City Tavern for over 30 years.
“After work one day she related this incident that took place at the tavern. A customer asked the waiter, ‘Miya-san,’ if she could order the children’s meal as she had a small appetite.
Miyashiro said no. “If you go to a movie and you have one glass eye, you still pay full price. You no pay half price.”
Bob Shane
One of the founders of the Kingston Trio, Bob Shane, was an entertainer at the Pearl City Tavern.
Shane was kicked out of business school in California in his senior year. He was up late in nightclubs singing and failed to get up for too many 8 a.m. classes. He ended up expelled, says William J. Bush in the book “Greenback Dollar: The Incredible Rise of the Kingston Trio.”
In the summer of 1956, Shane returned to Hawaii from college. Shane’s solo act at the Pearl City Tavern included a number of songs from a new recording artist, Elvis Presley.
Tavern patrons started calling him “Hawaii’s Elvis Presley.” It was embarrassing to him.
Years later the Kingston Trio was in Hawaii for a concert at the Waikiki Shell. “Elvis stepped out of an elevator we were going in,” Nick Reynolds recalled.
“He gave Bobby a big hug and said, ‘I’ve really wanted to meet you boys!’
“Elvis had an appointment and said, ‘I’d do anything to just sit around and pick with you guys, you know. Maybe later on we could get together.’
“And we said, ‘Oh, yeah!’ He was the biggest star in the world! And we never saw him again.”
Shane did see Elvis a few years later in Honolulu. Shane told him he actually got his start impersonating him in 1956. Elvis wasn’t impressed. “What would you wanna do that for?” he asked.
Kingston Trio
In the spring of 1957, Dave Guard and Nick Reynolds persuaded Shane to drop the Elvis act at the Pearl City Tavern in Hawaii and join them on the mainland.
The group solidified in early May 1957, first calling themselves the Cracked Pot. Six months later they settled on the name Kingston Trio, inspired by Kingston, Jamaica, where calypso music originated and Kingston, R.I., evocative of the Ivy League.
Pearl City Tavern
Daryl Carpenter spent a lot of time at the Pearl City Tavern while he lived at Hickam Air Force Base, now part of a joint base with Pearl Harbor.
“We lived on base and frequently rode our bikes everywhere. The tavern was one our frequent destinations, and on several occasions I, my wife and my boss’s wife (he always liked to stay home to mow his lawn and rest in a hammock watching ships enter and leave Pearl Harbor) would make the trek though the base, then through Pearl Harbor, and finally end up there.
“There we would relax and have really cold beer or great margaritas, and enjoy the monkeys or just the cool breeze amongst the bonsai garden. It was truly fond memories.
“But, more than once we stayed too long and would have been guilty of BWI (biking while intoxicated) had we tried to pedal back that entire distance. So we would call my boss and ask him to come and get us.
“The scene got pretty hilarious when we watched him trying to get three bikes in the trunk of his old Thunderbird. Lots of cursing and threats and us laughing made for vows to never again help, but we always made it and usually ended up those days by going out to a dinner on me.
“We never learned … memories like that are irreplaceable.”
George Fukuoka died in 1970, and the new owners were never able to provide the magic that had made the tavern a success. It closed in 1993. The monkeys were sent to live with a veterinarian on the Big Island. Termite damage made the building irreparable, and it was torn down. Pearl City Cutter Dodge now sells cars on the property.
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