Magoon Estate
tells Hula’s, others
to move

The estate is selling the land
under several Waikiki businesses

By Jim Witty
Star-Bulletin

Hula's Bar & Lei Stand -- a Waikiki landmark with its trademark banyan tree overarching part of the restaurant -- is looking for new digs.

The 23-year-old gay bar at Kuhio Avenue and Kalaimoku Street and several adjacent businesses have been notified by the Magoon Estate that their leases will expire in November and won't be renewed.

Magoon is selling the 86,000-square-foot parcel.

Representatives of Magoon Estate declined comment.

Early this year, Food Pantry Ltd. bought the 35,000-square-foot plot Diamond Head of Hula's and the Old Waikiki Marketplace from the Magoon Estate for $13 million with the intention of building a superette there in the future.

The half-dozen businesses there have not been given deadlines to move out, said Food Pantry spokesman Buzz Wo.

"We're sort of in a wait-and-see mode," he said. "There is no urgency. We thought it was a nice piece of property in an area that our other store in Waikiki doesn't service as well as it could."

Hula's owner Jack Law said Magoon sent notices to tenants a couple of months ago setting November as the deadline to vacate the premises. But Law said he's hoping he'll have until sometime next year to wrap up operations and find a new location.

"Of course, we're very unhappy," said Hula's manager Dell Brooks. "But there's nothing we can do."

Charlie Yoon, who sells candles and knickknacks in the Old Waikiki Marketplace on the same piece of property, said he's at loose ends.

"I don't know what we'll do now," he said. "Everyone likes it here but business hasn't been too good. It's been slow. We'd like to stay here, though."

Several businesses have already pulled out.

Hernando's Hideaway, a Mexican cantina tucked behind an empty building well off Kuhio Avenue, suffered when the restaurant in front closed recently, said day manager John Fillebrown.

"It's not good for us," he said. "That's what people see from Kuhio, and the window is dark and they think it's just another run-down tenement."

Fillebrown said Hernando's management is scouting possible locations.

"We're open for business and doing what we can," he said. "But this hasn't made it much easier."

Mac McKimmy, who owns Ocean Works dive shop next door, is philosophical about the change.

"Life goes on," he mused. "Because we're hidden back here, I was going to raise heck when the city made us take our signs off the sidewalk, but since I got notice a couple months ago, I thought, 'Forget it, I'll just move.'"

He said he plans to relocate to a space on Sand Island Road.

The Magoon Estate property -- including the parcel subsequently sold to Food Pantry -- was put on the block in 1995 for $75 million.

"It's the end of an era under a banyan tree," Law said.