COURTESY PHOTO Ah Fook's Super Market founder Tam Kui Fook, left, was a strong supporter of Sun Yat-sen and his effort to unite China in 1911. At top left is a photograph of Sun Yat-sen, whose brother lived in Kula. Seated on the high chair was Ah Fook's son, George. The other men were Ah Fook's friends.

Generations build
a Maui shopping
landmark

Descendants of a Chinese
immigrant cook keep Ah Fook's
Supermarket running

---

By Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.com

KAHULUI >> He began as a Chinese immigrant cook working for a prominent Maui family, and eventually accumulated enough money and experience to open a restaurant and store in Kahului more than 80 years ago.

Tam Kui Fook's entrepreneurial spirit lives today in several of his descendants and relatives who worked to make Ah Fook's Supermarket a popular weekly stop in food shopping in Kahului, despite competition from chain grocery stores.

The supermarket, which buys fresh vegetables and meats from many Maui farmers, employs 58 people, including those whose families have worked there for generations.

"Many relatives have worked here," said Raymond Hew, the store's general manager and a nephew to Ah Fook's wife.

Hew said his mother worked at the store occasionally, and his father was the accountant at Ah Fook's.

Cindy Ching, in charge of preparing package meals, said she learned the recipes for Chinese dishes from her aunts who once worked in the store.

Ching, who has been an employee for 25 years and whose grandmother was related to Ah Fook's wife, said she enjoys being among relatives.

"It's comfortable to work with people you know," she said.

Miriam Fong, the office clerk for 28 years and another relative, said many customers have shopped here for years, and she enjoys talking with them.

"They like the food, variety and bento. They like the fresh pork. What people say about here is that they meet a lot of their old friends."

They also meet a lot of Ah Fook's relatives, whose family ties to Hawaii reach back to the early 1900s and have played a part in contributing to the development of Maui and China.

After finishing their contract work at sugar plantations, many Chinese immigrant laborers moved in the later 1800s to the mountain slopes of Kula, where they started farms and established a Chinese community.

"There was no such thing as running water in the house or around the house," recalled the late William S. Fong in his family autobiography.

GARY T. KUBOTA / GKUBOTA@STARBULLETIN.COM Several relatives of the founder of Ah Fook's Supermarket work at the store, just as other family members before them worked there. They include, from left, chief cook Cindy Ching, general manager Raymond Hew and office worker Miriam Fong.

Fong, the brother of Ah Fook's wife, said the families built cisterns to capture rainwater as it fell from their roofs, and used wood to cook their food, boil their water and heat their baths.

Several leased land from Soon Mei, a brother of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China.

Ah Fook and a number of Chinese in Kula helped to finance Sun Yat-sen's political effort to overthrow the Manchu dynasty and unite China in 1911.

"He was one of the greatest supporters," recalled Ah Fook's son, George Tam.

Tam said a citation that recognized his father's monetary support to Sun Yat-sen was hung prominently in the living room of their home behind the store in Kahului.

Ah Fook, who arrived on Maui at age 19 in 1906, worked for several years as a cook for Frank Baldwin, the son of Henry P. Baldwin who helped to found shipping and sugar conglomerate Alexander & Baldwin Inc.

The Chinese immigrant also managed the Paia Club House, a boardinghouse for single men, before he married Margaret Set Kyau Fong.

Fong came from a family of business people in Kula who operated stores and a construction business.

Ah Fook's Store, founded in 1917, was located near its current location near Kahului Harbor and fronting railroad tracks that eventually became the route along Kaahumanu Avenue.

Tam, who later became a caterer, recalled his mother beginning work at 3 a.m. to prepare the food for a restaurant that was a part of the store.

Stevedores and railroad workers frequented the restaurant when it opened at 5 a.m. for breakfast and served fresh baked biscuits.

Customers could sign for the groceries without paying immediately and also request deliveries to their homes miles away.

Norma Koyanagi, 75, who worked at Ah Fook's from age 13 and still works part time in the produce department, recalled the founder as a "very nice man" who treated his employees well and provided them with lunch.

"We never did pay," she said. "He always let us eat free. He was a generous and thoughtful man."

After Ah Fook's death in 1946, his wife, Margaret, became the president of the company. She died in 1975.