TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Quizno’s eatery
meets quiet KailuaThe months-long Quizno's tease at Kailua Foodland Marketplace is over.
It started with a big sign. Then brown paper in the windows obscured attempts to peer inside. The torture level was ratcheted up with the paper's removal, revealing the tempting menu board behind locked doors.
Quizno's opened for lunch and dinner business in Kailua yesterday morning with oven-toasted sub sandwiches, soups, salads, desserts and catering possibilities heretofore available only at its 801 Alakea St. location downtown.
The Alakea store operates 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. A call to double-check the hours confirmed it is closed on Sunday but well-prepared to cross-promote its sister-store, "Kailua's open seven days a week," the call-taker said cheerfully.
The Kailua store at 108 Hekili St. offers something unavailable downtown -- parking.
It also has longer hours, opening daily at 10:30 a.m. and closing at 9 p.m. weekdays and 10 p.m. weekends.
Both seat 15 dine-in customers, said local Quizno's Classic Subs licensee and franchisee Corbin Hales, while the downtown store delivers with a $60 minimum order.
Build-out for the Pearl City Quizno's started last week in the old Lox of Bagels space in Times Square Shopping Center on Kaahumanu Street; it is to seat up to 40 customers.
It's just the beginning of the planned Pacific po'-boy proliferation under Sandwich Island Development Inc., the company established in April 2000 by David Hales, Corbin's father.
The two plan 28 Quizno's restaurants statewide within five years; the franchise fee for a first location is $20,000 and start-up costs can add up to $200,000, Corbin said.
Signed leases foretell franchises in Market City Shopping Center, in Kapolei near Tesoro and in Lahaina "right off Front Street near Starbucks," said the younger Hales. His two stores employ some two dozen people. "I hired as many people as I could. I didn't want to be short-handed," he said.
The Hales hail from Utah where they tried their first Quizno's sandwich. "We loved it, we wanted to move to Hawaii," and the two ideas proved a launching pad.
The Quizno's Corp. Web site, www.quiznos.com, tells of another father-son team which started with one franchise in Boulder, Colo., in 1987. In 1991 Dick and Rick Schaden bought the 18-unit Denver-based company from its founders and last year took it private after seven years of public company status on the Nasdaq. It was delisted Dec. 21.
Meanwhile, back at Kaneohe Ranch's Kailua Foodland Marketplace, Big City Diner devotees' wait for that opening won't be sated for another few weeks. "It'll open May 1 at the latest," said day manager Carlton Bailey.
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