Times Super Market
co-founder dies at 89

Albert Takeo Teruya / Businessman

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By Mary Vorsino
mvorsino@starbulletin.com

Albert Takeo Teruya, co-founder of the homegrown Times Super Market Ltd. and son of Big Island plantation workers, died yesterday afternoon. He was 89.

"He really loved his family and he worked hard to provide for us," his youngest son, Galen Teruya, said today.

"He said to always take care of your family and to never give up when you're down."

Albert Teruya and his brother, Wallace, founded Times in 1949 on a 6,000-square-foot patch of land near the corner of McCully and King streets.

The company rode the post-World War II boom to become the state's third-largest grocery store chain in the 1990s with 13 stores on Oahu. Albert moved to Honolulu from the Big Island in 1929, at age 15. Wallace followed two years later.

The brothers' first venture was the former Times Grill on Kapiolani Boulevard in the 1940s. The grocery store, named after the restaurant and sold last year to a Northern California-based food stores company, was the brainchild of the third brother, Herman Teruya, who died in combat during World War II.

Albert Teruya is survived by daughters Lorraine Yoshioka and Arlene Kozuma; and sons, Elton and Galen Teruya.