There is great news herein for Hawaiian Electric work crews grabbing breakfast, Judiciary employees who order stacks of lunches for jury members and the legions of other regulars who have missed a particular plate-lunch and Korean food joint.
"I keep running into HECO guys" who want to know when J’s is coming back, said Heejin Uchimura, daughter of second-generation owner So Ung Pak.
J’s Bar-B-Q will return to Kakaako with a new name, J’s Grill, possibly by December.
For years before its closure in September, HECO trucks would be parked all around J’s at 410 Keawe St. on weekday mornings, with blue coverall-clad employees inside the restaurant stocking up for the workday.
The lunch crowd would regularly include lanyard-wearing Judiciary employees picking up multiple bags of phone-ordered lunches to haul back to court, as well as sharply dressed professionals, neon-wearing construction workers and the shorts-T-shirts-and-slippers set.
The new J’s Grill will be steps away from the corner of Keawe and Auahi streets, the nearly 30-year-old location that closed to make way for Kamehameha Schools’ redevelopment of Kakaako.
The new space is adjacent to where the Walk In Store used to be. It measures 1,116 square feet and may have indoor seating for approximately 20 people, Uchimura said. She also is serving as J’s interior designer, which is what she actually does for a living — though many people tend to remember her from J’s.
In addition to the indoor space, "the whole block is going to provide outdoor seating," she said.
Inside, the space is longer, and different from the original restaurant configuration, Uchimura said.
Pak was counting on, but was unsure he would receive, an exterior space in SALT, the complex of buildings between Ala Moana Boulevard and Auahi, Keawe and Coral streets. The cluster of commercial buildings was named for historic salt ponds of the 1900s.
"We struck up a good relationship, and we managed to get him a great spot on the street," said Jo McGarry Curran, restaurant specialist and commercial real estate broker with Pacific Property Group Hawaii and Mojo, the latter being her consulting company. "Everybody is going to be thrilled," she said.
The design concept for the new J’s will be "nothing too fancy, but very welcoming," Uchimura said, "more rustic and contemporary."
"It’s going to be a real big change from what my dad had before," she said, though she added that the familiar blackboard menu she designed for the old place might return.
The most popular of the old J’s dishes will return, but the menu will be smaller than the sprawling selection offered in the past.
Lest that cause a panic, Uchimura said daily specials will be used "to bring back something from the old menu," she said.
Packaging will be more eco-friendly, since most of the restaurant’s business will be ordered to-go.
The restaurant was renamed with an eye toward updating its brand. However, the J was kept because it is the main element of the brand name, Uchimura said.
Pak is working on the build-out of a food service operation at his other business, reported in this space in August. He and a business partner purchased Ono Polynesian Market last year, with plans to set up a kitchen to serve local-style plate lunches and Korean dishes, similar to those served at J’s. The store is across from the U.S. post office near Lualualei Homestead Road in Waianae.
Meanwhile, back at SALT, J’s Grill will be a neighbor to existing tenants including Bevy, Brue, Cocina Hawaii, Hank’s Haute Dogs, Highway Inn, Insomnia Espresso Cafe and Paiko. Incoming neighbors include Peter Merriman’s new 7,000-square-foot restaurant, which will be a sort of "cousin" to his Monkeypod Kitchen restaurant concept; Pitch Sports Bar; and Social Beer.
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
