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TheBuzz
Erika Engle
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Waimalu waves good-bye to Elephant & Castle
THE last of the fish and chips and Guinness and Bass beer almost came too soon for Elephant & Castle Restaurant, an English-style pub and fixture in Waimalu that is planning to close after nearly 30 years.
Owner Emilio Quiton is having to stock up on food, ale and other supplies to say good-bye to longtime and one-last-time customers on Thursday. He will close the pub because his 30-year lease is drawing to a close and business has fallen.
Quiton, 60, said he is tired. "It's a great stress on me and I think as we get older we start to realize our bodies can't take the pressure any longer."
The 6,000-square-foot restaurant can seat 250. At the business's peak in the 1980s, there were 28 employees and "I did twice the business I do today with (lower) prices," Quiton said. He is now down to eight employees.
Business started to decline when the Honolulu smoking ban took effect a couple years back. "It's been difficult, having no smoking in the pub ... we lost as much as $500 a day in income," he said.
Between his lease, which costs about $550 a day, and labor, insurance and other expenses, "You have to make a good $3,500 a day just to break even and have some kind of an income. We have worked without an income for quite a long time," he said.
Other challenges are common-area maintenance fees for the surrounding business plaza "that are approaching the cost of the rent, which is totally unreal," as well as parking that is limited by gates during the day, he said.
"Controlled parking kills a restaurant," he said.
Quiton tried to sell the heritage eatery, but "I'm located in a business center rather than a shopping center and it's not conducive to most people that reviewed the restaurant," he said.
Part of Elephant & Castle's success was its long ties with community groups, who used the restaurant's meeting room at no charge.
The Corvette Club of Hawaii has been meeting at the restaurant "for like, 20 years or something," said club spokesman Dennis Shewell. A waitress named Sacorro was the club's server for perhaps 10 to 15 years, Shewell said. She waited on the various clubs and knew everybody's favorites.
"She was fantastic. Great service, you know ... you couldn't ask for a better waitress," Shewell said.
The Corvette Club will take its significant food-and-beverage business to the Flamingo restaurant in Pearl City for a test drive, but the club leaves Elephant & Castle with a heavy collective heart.
"You don't know how much that place is going to be missed," Shewell said.
Quiton said he is disappointing many companies who are calling to book the place for Christmas parties. Raynor Pacific Overhead Doors "have had their company party here since the beginning of time ... everybody's crying."
Hawaii folk who may have seen other Elephant & Castle restaurants while visiting Vancouver, British Columbia, or 25 other locations across Canada and the U.S. mainland may have wondered if there was any connection to the Waimalu location.
Well, yes and no.
Elephant & Castle of Hawaii Inc. was incorporated in 1972, but wasn't opened until June 9, 1976, by George Frederici, who operated a similar restaurant in Oregon. Filipino-German Quiton worked for Frederici in Oregon and again in Hawaii until Frederici's death in the mid-1980s.
Quiton bought the restaurant from Frederici's family and has run it ever since.
"The main owners of the restaurant Elephant & Castle in Portland, (Ore.), ended up going to court and they won the rights to (the name) Elephant & Castle in the United States," Quiton said. "I have a partial agreement with them myself. I control just the islands, and I'm going to be holding the name."
To keep things simple on Thursday, Quiton will put out a buffet, but his eight employees are preparing for an onslaught of customers.
At 1:30 a.m. Friday he will close the doors on the career he has had, in the place he has worked it, all his adult life.
The next time the doors open to customers, at 11 a.m. Saturday, it will be for an auction of the restaurant's fixtures and decor -- including the draperies Quiton sewed himself.
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Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at:
eengle@starbulletin.com