Sale nears for Columbia Inn Kaimuki, the last in a local restaurant chain begun in 1941 by Fred "Tosh" Kaneshiro and his brother Frank Gentaro Kaneshiro, is to be sold to a family of entrepreneurs who operate two businesses in the food court at Ala Moana Center.
Columbia Inn
Kaimuki
The Waialae eatery will re-open,
but 58 jobs will be affectedBy Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.comThe sale, for an undisclosed price, is not yet out of escrow.
Sources close to the deal said the new owners intend to keep the family restaurant about the same as it is. However, buyers Thanh C. Nguyen and Tri Nguyen could not be reached for comment. Tri Nguyen told the Star-Bulletin earlier this year that his family hoped to keep the 4,500-square-foot restaurant operating pretty much as it currently does, with a coffee shop, lunch and dinner restaurant serving local food.
Kyotaru U.S.A., the local arm of a Japanese company that bought the Columbia Inn business in 1986, declined to comment.
Kyotaru has filed a "plant closing" notice with the state Department of Labor saying 58 jobs will be affected by a pending change of ownership.
If there are no snags, the sale will take place Sept. 30. The new owners plan to close the restaurant for two weeks of clean-up before re-opening.
The Columbia Inn business was started in 1941 by the Kaneshiro brothers. They opened on Beretania Street in December 1941, right about the time the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into World War II.
In 1964 the family bought a Times Grill at 645 Kapiolani Blvd. and turned it into a popular gathering place for entertainers, journalists, politicians and local families who rubbed shoulders at the Columbia Inn Kapiolani, advertised as "Top of da Boulevard."
Later they opened in Kaimuki, and in the early 1980s opened a big new restaurant at Waimalu.
In 1986, however, the Kaneshiro family was having trouble making loan payments and sold the business to Japanese restaurant and food-manufacturing business Kyotaru Co.
Kyotaru turned the Waimalu restaurant into a Japanese Kyotaru, opened a Kyotaru in Waikiki and a couple of takeout sushi places in downtown Honolulu.
By last year, however, hurt by a falling Japanese economy, the parent company in Japan was in bankruptcy, and a bankruptcy court there ordered the company to sell off overseas assets that could bring in cash.
The famous Columbia Inn Kapiolani was sold to neighboring automobile dealer Servco Pacific Inc. and closed its doors Jan. 5 this year.
The Waikiki and downtown Kyotaru outlets were closed. The Kyotaru at Waimalu was sold in July to a new company, REI Food Service, a partnership of Tom Jones, Kyotaru U.S.A. general manager, and Nobutaka "Tony" Sato, who was operations manager for Kyotaru Hawaii.
Its name was changed to Gyotaku Japanese Restaurant.
Kyotaru officials have said the need to sell off was a pity because the restaurants, under close cost control and operating at hours that made the best economic sense, had been doing well.