NEIGHBORHOODS
Fish market's
success due to hard
work, ‘good hands’
Tanioka's in Waipahu is
By Rod Ohira
largely a family affair, with three
generations involved
Star-BulletinMel Tanioka didn't have a steady job, and his wife was expecting their second child in 1978 when he decided at age 31 to take a chance and chase a dream.
"I wanted to start some kind of business," he said. "It was either going to be a service station or fish market."
Tanioka chose the latter.
Twenty-one years after founding Tanioka's Fish Market at 94-903 Farrington Highway in Waipahu, the 52-year-old Wahiawa native and Leilehua High graduate heads a family business that employs 75 people and grossed $3 million last year.
Known today as Tanioka's Seafoods & Catering, the business is best known for its poke and fresh fish, but since expanding into catering in the early 1990s, Tanioka has also developed a reputation for sushi and bento.
"The catering side has taken off," he said. "We sell 500-600 lunch plates and bentos a day, and during the holidays sushi is our big seller.
"Last year, we made 700 to 900 maki rolls and 4,000 to 5,000 cone sushis. The catering represents about 50 percent of our business."
In August, Tanioka's opened a second location in downtown Honolulu, where it shares space at Pioneer Plaza with two other businesses: Samurai Inc. and Honolulu's Best Coffee.
The business' success is a tribute to her husband's hard work, said Tanioka's wife, the former Lynn Furukawa of Waipahu.
"I gave birth to our son one month after the market opened, so I couldn't help much," Lynn Tanioka said. "Mel was working from sunrise to sunset.
"He was at the market to buy fish every morning at 4 a.m., then had to cut fish, make poke, work in the market and do the paperwork. His mom (Betty Tanioka) helped out a lot."
Mel Tanioka, who decided to open a fish market because he enjoys fishing, started with a good recipe for limu poke but said it's what Joann Abilla and his mother contribute to the mix that makes the poke special.
"We have the old Hawaiian lady with good hands," he said of Abilla, who is operations manager of Tanioka's seafood division. "She's from Ewa Beach and used to come in to sell seaweed.
"One day I asked her to work for us, and she's been a key factor in the company since. The meaning of hands refers to knowing how to mix salt and all the other ingredients in the poke to make it taste right."
Tanioka said Abilla and his mother played a big role in developing the taste of the 25-40 different varieties of poke the market sells.
But it all starts with quality seafoods, he said.
For tako poke, for example, Tanioka uses imported Madako tako.
"There are many different grades of tako, but we buy better quality for the taste," he said. "It costs more but you get satisfied customers."
The company makes 300 pounds of limu poke and 200 pounds of shoyu poke a day, said Lynn Tanioka.
The most rewarding aspect for the Taniokas is that their children -- Jasmine and Justin -- are interested in carrying on the business.
"It makes everything worthwhile," Lynn Tanioka said. "We worked hard to try and give them a better life. This is a business we're very proud of, and we're happy that our children want to carry on for what we struggled to build."
Jasmine and Justin are working in Tanioka's retail division, which is managed by Mel's sister, Esther Ringor. Mochi and Chinese preserves are among the retail items sold by the company.
Thelma Furukawa, Lynn's mother, is the catering manager, while Mel's nephew, Cliff Yamauchi, runs the seafood division.
"Because of friends and family, from Day 1 we went way over what we expected," Mel Tanioka said. "From there it just snowballed. We've been very fortunate."
Tanioka believes in giving back to the community and has been honored in Waipahu and Mililani for his services.
He sponsors a golf tournament each year to raise funds that are passed on to youth programs and community groups such as Mililani Missionary.
