WRITTEN BY MARTA LANE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KIRK SHORTE AND MIEKO HORIKOSHI

“Loyal employees say deep family connections fortify the resort’s longevity; families that exemplify solidarity as older generations teach younger generations about ethics and standards of quality.”

In 2015, Hawaii Island’s Mauna Kea Beach Hotel celebrated its 50th anniversary as a luxury resort. Though the Mauna Kea boasts world-class views of Hāpuna Bay and Hualālai Mountain, visitors and staff members alike know there’s more to the resort’s continued success than a picturesque setting. Its loyal employees say deep family connections fortify the resort’s longevity; families that exemplify solidarity as older generations teach younger generations about ethics and standards of quality.

Wes Yamamoto Jr. has worked as a bellman at Mauna Kea for 16 years. His lineage boasts three generations and five family member employees, including his father, who started as a busboy and is now the resort’s butcher.

“I was here for the 25th anniversary,” says Yamamoto. “I was 13 years old and my grandpa worked in the engineering department. Back then, they had the blasting license to do the fireworks, which I got to help load. I was about 15 feet away from the big ‘two-five’ that they lit up. We are celebrating 25 years later. I never thought I’d be here for the fiftieth.”

In Lisa Carpio’s family, three generations and thirteen family members have been employed at Mauna Kea. Her mother and father worked at the resort when it opened in 1965. After working on the mainland, Carpio returned home and started as a dishwasher, then moved to the kitchen and worked with her mother.

Carpio works at the Hau Tree, the resort’s lunchtime restaurant overlooking Kohala Coast’s Kauna‘oa Beach. During peak service, up to 400 lunches are served. When Carpio first started, she didn’t enjoy preparing sushi. As a left-hander, she rolls sushi in the opposite direction of her mother – who insisted that her daughter roll sushi the way she did. Carpio didn’t understand why she couldn’t do it her way when the finished product looked the same. With 50 orders coming in for one service, and three pieces per order, her mother finally gave up and let Carpio do it her way.

“You have to live up to the older generation’s standards, so the pressure is on you,” says Carpio, who remembers playing in the resort’s bay as a child. “There are a lot of bumps in the road but it smoothes out. We all have our differences, but when it comes to work, we pull together.”

Thirteen years ago, Judy Itzig-Heine landed her first job as a waitress at the Hau Tree. She stayed on for 10 years before becoming the food and beverage manager and, today, is the human resources coordinator. Within her family, four generations have worked at Mauna Kea, including her grandmother, who worked in laundry; her mother, who was a hotel operator; her mother-in-law, who was a popular waitress; and her two daughters, who work in the landscaping and golf departments.

Generations of employees looking after generations of visitors lends continuity to a guest’s experience. With 50 year’s worth of generational team members, personal relationships blossom into international connections, which enlarges Mauna Kea’s singular family.

“Throughout the years, we’ve come to know the families who visit regularly. They look for the generations, the tradition and the old grand Mauna Kea feeling,” says Itzig-Heine, who always wanted to work at Mauna Kea because of its family-oriented quality. “I’m trying to get the younger generation to adapt to the Aloha Spirit. It’s hard to get them to say aloha naturally, which was easy for the older generation. Aloha means hello, love and welcome. It’s like sunshine.”

Family dynamics have great power. Families can clash as lifelong enemies, or come together in peace and harmony. Life’s challenges weave generations into an indelible tapestry and forge a united family; a family whose heart is filled with aloha.

WRITTEN BY CATHERINE E. TOTH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JANA DILLON

Born in Waialua, raised in Wahiawā and seasoned in the Nashville music industry, Poni Askew returned home with the intention to make and sell Mexican popsicles. Instead, she had three kids, worked at Starbucks and conjured up the unique idea of organizing a large-scale food truck rally every month in Kaka‘ako.

Today, the 42-year-old Mililani resident is the founder and CEO of Street Grindz, an events management company that currently hosts Eat the Street, Honolulu Night Market and ARTafterDARK. This summer, the company debuted Makers & Tasters, an outdoor venue with food truck vendors at the old Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant site in Kewalo.

Askew managed to find time to talk story with us about her vision for Street Grindz, the challenges of being a small business owner, and her plans to take her wildly popular food truck rally on the road.

1. What inspired you to work within the food industry?
Prior to owning Street Grindz I worked for Starbucks.   It was a great company to work for, but I felt that I needed to work and provide impact. In 2010, when we started Street Grindz, I actually thought that I’d be a street vendor myself and make ice pops. That changed as I learned quickly that I did not like chopping and blending fruit that much! What I do enjoy is finding ways to provide opportunities to small business owners by providing locations and venues for them to be successful at their business. Street food is a long-lived tradition here in Hawai‘i and, in 2010, I thought it was very under-appreciated and under-recognized. I wanted to bring attention to some of the most ‘ono food in the islands — street food!

2. How would you describe what you do?
It’s always so difficult to describe what we do. Many people call us event planners – and we do plan events. However, I consider us to be community and commerce developers. Our events bring the community together, giving them a place to gather over food, and our makers to showcase their talents. Our mission is to connect people, grow small businesses and, at the end of the day, the output is a very cool virtuous cycle of local economy.

3. What motivates you to feed the community?
Local food business success is what drives me. It’s satisfying to see our street food vendors realize their dreams to be entrepreneurs. We are passionate about building systems of abundance starting right here in Hawai‘i, and that all starts with little shifts in how we buy and what we eat. We’re hoping to create a space where that can happen; where, with every plate, we see both residents and tourists venturing outside of chain restaurants and fast food joints to support local businesses.

4. Why food trucks for your business model?
When we started our business in 2010, I wanted Hawai‘i to be placed on the map for street food. I knew that street food in Hawai‘i has been around for over 100 years. It’s a legacy here and we wanted to make sure we stood out against cities like LA, San Francisco and Portland, which, at the time, were getting all the attention for street food. There is much to applaud (these cities) for success in social media integration and street food. They even led the way in bringing about the gourmet food truck. But, at the end of the day, Hawai‘i has its own story to tell. We have had the manapua man forever and the Kahuku shrimp truck was slinging plates way before there were any taco fusion trucks out there.

5. What is your vision for creating the food truck initiative?
I  believe that through community and commerce we can find a virtuous cycle that supports our local community of small business owners and local farmers. An approachable educational opportunity for street food vendors will increase their opportunities for  success.  Imagine a local economy where small local food  entrepreneurs and street food vendors work together by aggregating their Top 10 produce items purchased and sourcing as a collective their food from local farmers. We can all be part of a virtuous cycle just by taking part in eating from our local food entrepreneurs.

6. Tell us about Makers & Tasters, your newest venture?  Where do you hope this will lead to in the future?
I hope that Makers & Tasters provides the next step of  opportunity to street food vendors that are looking for a permanent or semi-permanent place to park. I also hope to provide the community of “tasters” the opportunity to enjoy food trucks/street food outside of large-scale events like Eat the Street. A place to sit and relax with their families and pets in an environment so unique and special to Honolulu while providing all of the creature comforts, including clean bathrooms, plenty of seating, pau hana drinks and an amazing view. We are looking forward to finding success in our first venue. Who knows? There may be one in a neighborhood near you.

7. How do you see your work impacting future generations here on this island?
Street food is a great way to start a  business with a minimal amount of overhead to get started. This, in itself, provides hope and encouragement to people who are eager to be their own boss. Street Grindz and Makers & Tasters were designed to support the hopeful food  entrepreneur – providing venues, events and marketing. I hope that this inspiration translates to future food entrepreneurs. We have presented to several colleges and are looking forward to a local high school’s career fair. I think that there is a ton of opportunity for the budding entrepreneur.

8. Are there any plans to take this to other islands in the future?
We have aspirations to venture into the other islands. We have not only provided events and venues for vendors, but we have advocated for the food truck industry as well. I think our experience can translate to something more than creating an Eat the Street or Makers & Tasters on other islands.

9. What is the most challenging aspect of doing business in Hawaii for you?
Gosh, that’s a loaded question. People always say that Hawai‘i is the most difficult state to start your own business or be an entrepreneur. To that I always as this question: “Have you tried to do business anywhere else?” The grass is truly always greener on the other side. But one of the challenges I have had along the way was really defining who we are, what we offer. We do not see ourselves as event planners; we see ourselves as community developers. From the view of a street food vendor, I’d say the biggest challenge is that there are too many people looking to their neighbor to see what they do and then they try to do something “better.” I think the better way to move within an industry is to look for what you can’t find and then ask why is it not there.  For example, I have been giving presentations for three years now. The first thing I say is there are two food trucks that are overdone. Please do not open a cupcake truck or a taco truck! There are so many of them out there. Don’t duplicate what you find. Come up with something new. That’s the only way to stay ahead.

10. What is the best thing about doing business in Hawai‘i for you?
The people of Hawai‘i are truly unique and  amazing. I left home (Hawai‘i) for almost 15 years. During  that time I met lots of different people from all kinds of backgrounds. There is nothing like the people of Hawai‘i. Between small business owners and the hundreds of  thousands of people we have hosted at our events over the years, it’s just amazing to see that overall the people of Hawai‘i are community-oriented, local-supporting residents.  We couldn’t be in business if it were not for the people we work with and work for. Our community humbles me and that’s what keeps me going at Street Grindz every day. So, mahalo to all the tasters for being such loyal supporters of Street Grindz and all the food trucks in our network.

WRITTEN BY JILL ENGLEDOW
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF MAUI PORTUGUESE CULTURAL CLUB

The intoxicating aroma of freshly baked bread mingles with the scent of kiawe smoke, as members of the Maui Portuguese Cultural Club pull golden loaves from a stone oven in Kahului. It’s the club’s monthly baking day; a way to raise funds for scholarships and club activities. The all volunteer crew produces dozens of loaves, using an old family recipe and an oven that could have been found in an Azores village or a Maui plantation camp more than a century ago.

Portuguese families first arrived in Hawai‘i in the 1880s, bringing with them from the islands of Madeira and the Azores a cuisine that featured their soft, white breads still popular today. The women of these families generally baked once a week in a community wood-fired oven.

According to Club President Laura Paresa, ethnic cooking was the one thing plantation bosses allowed immigrant workers to pass down, noting that when students applying for Club scholarships are asked what it means to them to be Portuguese, most write about food. Paresa believes there is much more to a culture than its cuisine, but it is food—their famous bread—that supports the Club’s efforts to move beyond cuisine in order to revive forgotten aspects of their culture.

The Club’s oven sits on a lawn at one of Kahului’s Hale Mahaolu housing complexes. Founded in 1968, the Maui Portuguese Culture Club began baking bread to help raise funds for the maintenance of the Portuguese casa, fountain and garden at Heritage Gardens, the ‘Ïao Valley park celebrating Maui’s radiant multicultural population. The Portuguese section of the park was designed by its founding members, including then-mayor Elmer Cravalho, and the Club’s Portuguese bread and bean soup were a favorite treat at the old Maui County Fair, (before the fairgrounds near the Kahului Safeway closed in 1988). When the Club attempted to move their oven, it fell apart.

Mayor Cravalho insisted a new Portuguese oven be built at Hale Mahaolu‘Akähi, the first independent living complex for Maui’s elders, and so the bakers moved with it. They use the oven once a month, along with the little kitchen off the complex’s craft and recreation area, a shaded lanai with tables and plenty of room for bread making, cooling and packaging.

Baking day starts the night before. Most months, club member Greg Perreira arrives to start the fire,using kiawe wood he has collected and cut to fit the oven. Either Perreira (napping in a tent he pitches the lawn) or Paresa (dozing in her car) monitors the fire through the night.

The kiawe burns within the oven’s dome, whose walls reach temperatures as high as 1100°F. The bakers scoop out the coals, clean up the oven, and leave the door open to cool it to no more than 700°, judging the temperature by tossing flour on the oven floor to see how quickly it browns. Coals left at the front of the oven help to maintain a stable temperature.

The bakers arrive at 6 a.m. to start the masa, dough that will rise into a cushiony mound in a large stainless-steel bowl. Chief baker Yvonne Aoki learned to make bread from her father, former president of the club and its baker. “He would be running back and forth” between his mixer and the oven, but with enough helpers (including her husband, Paul), Aoki can focus on filling the giant bread mixer to make dough. When the dough has risen, Club Vice President Lorraine Evans pinches off big chunks, weighing and setting each into greased pans.

Now the club members all pitch in, rolling out chunks to form loaves, sometimes sprinkling dough with a mix of cinnamon, sugar and raisins, then rolling up the loaf to create a sweet swirl. With other portions of dough, they form seven small rolls—traditionally, one for each day of the week— and set them all into a round pan. These loaves come out of the oven looking like puffy little golden crowns.

The first hot loaves are ready to remove within 15 minutes. The oven workers line them up on a contraption built from an old gurney with wheels recycled from a wheelchair and a wheelbarrow. Carrying 15 cinnamon loaves and 15 seven-roll pans to the recreation area, the gurney is unloaded onto cooling racks.

The workers slice into a “sacrificial loaf” that is less perfect than the others, a reward to enjoy with a fresh cup of coffee and a scoop of homemade jam. It’s a pleasant morning, as customers come to pick up the loaves they’ve preordered and members take time to relax and talk story.

In addition to supporting Club scholarships and activities, proceeds will help care for the Heritage Gardens casa, where the Club meets monthly and holds an annual Festa every May to celebrate Portuguese culture and traditions – a celebration that goes to the heart of the Club’s purpose.

President Paresa descends from both Madeira and Azores immigrants . She joined the club in 2004 after a life-changing trip to the Azores. “The enormity of Portuguese customs and traditions lost in subsequent generations born in Hawai‘i was obvious from the moment we stepped off the plane in the Azores,” she states on the Club website. “In a land of easy, laid-back, simple lifestyles where faith in God is the priority, I found myself to be far more American in culture than Portuguese.”

“We really lost a lot,” Paresa says of the changes since the Portuguese arrived in Hawai‘i. By the time Paresa asked her grandmother to teach her to pray the rosary in Portuguese, plantation-boss suppression of the culture had been internalized. Her grandmother refused, saying,“You are an American.” Today, says Paresa, Islanders of Portuguese descent tend to believe “Portagee jokes,” knowing little about their culture’s richness or about Portuguese explorers who headed bravely into an unknown world—Columbus, Magellan, da Gamma. “I’m learning through this club so we can bring back some of this culture.”

So while the club uses its well-known and beloved food to support its efforts, its goals reach far beyond savory soups and sweet breads to restore a people’s history. At each meeting of the group at the Heritage Gardens casa, they begin by praying as their ancestors did—in Portuguese.