Three more Honolulu
restaurants closing

The unrelated moves
cost 135 workers their jobs

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Three unrelated Honolulu restaurants have given up and are laying off a total of 135 workers, saying they are unable to keep operating.

Spaghetti Spaghetti in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, with 45 workers, will close at the end of May.

Owner Kenny Lum yesterday said a fall-off in business, particularly a downslide in Japanese tourist traffic, forced him to give up after 11 years in the Waikiki location.

"I'm going broke. I can't hack it any more," said Lum.

Andrew's in the basement of the Executive Centre Hotel in downtown Honolulu, closed at the end of the day yesterday. Lori Wong, who owns the restaurant with her mother Marian, said there was a staff of 20. She declined to comment on the reasons for closing.

Scott's Seafood Grill & Bar in the Aloha Tower Marketplace shut down Wednesday, letting go a staff of about 60. Lynn Holty, general manager, said the closing was a result of a lease dispute with the center's management.

Citing the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau's report this week that tourism in March was down 6 percent, Lum said his business depends on volume since the margin of profit is not high.

"Our volume has dropped increasingly for the last 24 months," Lum said. "It's going to be worse, too."

While noting that he paid $2 million in rent through the 11 years in the location, Lum said he has had a good relationship with the landowner, the Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate.

"They've been compassionate and understanding," Lum said. He said he refuses to go into bankruptcy. He added that he plans to pay off any bills to wholesale suppliers out of his own pocket.

"I'm going out gracefully," he said.

Marketing consultant Martin D. Plotnick, head of Creative Resources Inc., said Hawaii's restaurants are suffering just like those in all tourist-dependent economies when the tourist traffic falls.

And because of the poor state of the Hawaii economy, island residents don't eat out as much, Plotnick said. "Take the local market out of the eating-out market and it's a double hit," he said.

Historically, the restaurant business has the highest failure rate of any industry, "even more than high-technology," Plotnick said.