Maui coffee shop owner opens heart and ears

John Henry is offering a helping hand to his fellow Maui residents with a cup of joe, some good music and a place for prayer.

Henry owns the Maui Coffee Attic in Wailuku, and with a fire having devastated much of Lahaina, he offers his vintage building, with its downstairs concert hall space, to Grace Baptist Church for serv­ices. “They’re like family,” he said.

“We’ve always had church groups that wanted to rent it out, but I told them no because Sunday is my day off,” he said with a laugh. “But this time, it made sense, so we opened the doors up and they’ve been meeting here every Sunday morning and on Wednesday nights.”

Henry, 65, has attended Grace Baptist off and on for some 40 years, and his connection to the church is personal as well as spiritual. Henry served in the military in Hawaii in the early 1980s and originally came to Maui to help a family friend teach Sunday school. The friend was Arza Brown, who is still pastor of Grace Baptist at age 81.

Brown got Henry a summer job at a camera store in Lahaina, “and that summer job turned into 40 years,” Henry said.

He would have a successful career as a wedding photographer on Maui, starting back when photography required not just someone with a good eye and a good camera, but also film developing and photo printing skills. Henry would shoot nuptials for the likes of musicians Dr. Dre and Metallica’s James Hetfield, eventually earning enough to buy the building 15 years ago, using part of it for his studio and renting out the rest.

Within a few short years, however, digital photography and cellphone cameras became ubiquitous and the market for his skills crashed. When his last tenant left, Henry considered selling the building and consulted a real estate agent, who told him either a coffee shop or a hair salon would do well there.

“I looked at my wife and said, ‘Can’t cut hair, let’s open a coffee shop,’” Henry said. “We planned on being here only about six months, or until we could sell the place, but the thing just kept getting better and better. This is the best thing that ever happened to me. It’s so much more fun than photography. We got to meet so many nice community members.”

There’s a lot of history in the building. It was constructed in the mid-1950s, and its design was inspired by the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, perhaps America’s most influential architect of the 20th century. “It’s been an icon in Wailuku for a long time,” Henry said. “It goes back to the old-school days, where they’d come here and have shakes and hamburgers and ramen after school.”

At one point, the building also housed a music store, and Henry pays homage to that legacy by hosting musicians there on a regular basis. With performance opportunities elsewhere on Maui now limited, Henry is having music every morning and most days during the noon hour, performed kanikapila-style with customers welcome to grab a guitar, ukulele or mandolin off the wall and join in. He’s also scheduled a few weekend evening concerts, hosting the Maui band Kanekoa every first Friday.

Having taken part in so many weddings over the years, Henry is well connected with the local music scene.

“We love working with the really older guys,” he said. “We have a couple guys in their 70s that have been playing here for years. But then today we had a girl who’s 19 years old, a Kamehameha grad with a beautiful voice. We have mostly Hawaiian music, but we also have blues, and we have a Beatles cover band.”

The concerts are family friendly, no alcohol served. “Our musicians that are sober absolutely love it,” said Henry, who has ministered to prison inmates and heard how alcohol had ruined their lives. Food trucks also are on hand.

“We’re just hosting it,” he said. “We do all the sound. We have all the equipment. They just bring their instruments and we manage it and give them cash for the night. They walk home with the money and we walk home with having a good time.”

Maui Coffee Attic, 59 Kanoa St., is open 6 a.m.- 2:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Visit mauicoffeeattic.com or call 808-250-9555.