TheBuzz
Erika Engle
Brain freeze
a potential
at new spotThink of snacking on the North Shore and shave ice comes to mind. Linked with the term shave ice, the names Matsumoto or Aoki probably pop up before Waimea Falls Park, but park officials and publicists hope to change that and increase its slice of the shave ice pie, or cone, or whatever.
Increasing park attendance wouldn't be a bad thing either.
Waimea Falls Park has long offered shave ice at its Country Kitchen Snack Shop, which has also offered fresh coconut with coconut milk, popular with visitors.
Enter Waimea Shaka Shave Ice, a creation of park officials and Atlantis Adventures LLC, which handles its sales and marketing.
"Shave ice is the treat for the North Shore," said Loreen Matsushima, Atlantis' public relations and advertising director. "But we wanted to come up with our own unique product."
Given the popularity of the fresh coconut with milk the team decided to combine the two, to serve the shave ice in the locally grown coconut shell.
Sort of shades of the old "Hey, you got your peanut butter on my chocolate" Reese's commercials of years ago.
"Exactly," Matsushima said.
Waimea Shaka Shave Ice can be served in the coconut shell with its meat, milk, ice cream and other toppings for $6. It offers a variety of choices such as the Cocolada Combo that includes coconut and pineapple syrups, haupia and coconut flakes; the Mango Tango Combo of mango- and lilikoi-flavored shave ice with tropical fruit sorbet, and the Local Boy Special in which the key flavoring is li hing powder.
The shell with meat and milk is still $5 and the regular non-shell version starts at $2.25.
The snack shop is outside the park's admission gate and is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. It is offering its new creations at two for the price of one through June 30, but a coupon is required for the deal. Printable coupons are available at www.atlantisadventures.com.
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
