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TheBuzz Erika Engle |
One longtime eatery
closes, another also
will bid alohaMongolian Bar-B-Que has closed its doors after 28 years of cooking up meats, vegetables and flavor-infused oils to customers' orders.
Separately, Naniwa-Ya Japanese Seafood Restaurant at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping center is going to close at the end of January.
Each restaurant cites a different cause for closure.
Mongolian Bar-B-Que and its landlord were unable to reach terms on a new lease, according to restaurant President G.G. Lau.
All the restaurant's equipment was left behind as of Nov. 26 and a new restaurant is moving in, although a neighboring 12th Avenue business was unaware of its name. A representative of the landlord could not be reached.
Mongolian Bar-B-Que had been in its location for about five years, Lau said, preceded by another store at Kuhio Mall in Waikiki and its first location that opened in 1975 in the Chinese Cultural Plaza downtown.
The cultural plaza location closed in 1988 and the Waikiki shop closed in 1995.
"That was a great 28 years. A lot of nice people," Lau said.
"I do miss a lot of nice folks as being patrons to us, and it's just too bad. I don't think there's going to be another Mongolian Bar-B-Que around. For this moment we don't have any plans."
Naniwa-Ya Chairman Akio Higashio cited "the downfall of the economy" for the restaurant's planned closure in a notice to the state Department of Labor. Its last day of business will be Jan. 31.
The restaurant employs 51 people in a restaurant and a kiosk at the shopping center, according to the phone book.
Officials could not be reached for comment and a manager at Naniwa-Ya Ramen at Ala Moana Center had no information about the Waikiki location.
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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