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TheBuzz Erika Engle |
Expanding cheeseburger
chains and virus vaccinationsCHEESEBURGER in Paradise restaurant has secured the old Sizzler space at Ala Moana and Kalakaua Avenue as part of an expansion that will also take it to Ala Moana Center and the Shops at Mauna Lani on the Big Island.
The Sizzler space will reopen as Waikiki's second Cheeseburger in Paradise in May or June. The Mauna Lani location is slated for a September opening, and the Ala Moana store is to open on the third floor of the old JC Penney space in September 2005.
The Shops at Mauna Lani lease will be signed next week and a letter of intent has been signed for the Ala Moana space, said Michael Conti, chief operating officer of Cheeseburger Restaurants Inc., the development and management company for Cheeseburger in Paradise, Cheeseburger at the Oasis and Cheeseburgerland restaurants.
The first Cheeseburger in Paradise opened in Lahaina in 1989. Since then, other locations have opened in Las Vegas, Wailea and at 2500 Kalakaua. Officials don't believe the Honolulu stores will be too close.
"It's an unusual situation, probably one of the most unusual in the world," Conti said.
The existing Waikiki location is surrounded by "probably close to 50,000 to 75,000 people. When they come to Hawaii, they eat, drink and stay pretty much in that general area," he said.
"Then we look at Ala Moana and it's a whole different market. Tourists go there but it's mostly locals. If you go up to Ala Moana, to CPK and Bubba Gumps, you see more locals than you see tourists -- it's just the place to go for locals because it has parking, so it's a completely different market," he said.
The existing Cheeseburger has no parking lot. The old Sizzler location has some parking as its 6,100 square foot building sits on nearly 19,000 square feet of land.
The landlords, a hui led by Ted K. Fujiyoshi, turned down hostess bars interested in the space, said leasing agent Steve Sofos.
Fujiyoshi and his partners wanted a good quality tenant, Sofos said.
"I've never seen a landlord-tenant meet to iron out terms of the contract, doing it on a conference call, and they're the best of friends at the end of the call. Usually it's adversarial," he said.
Light reading, anyone?
The team at Hawaii Biotech Inc. knew a research paper on which it had collaborated with Harvard Medical School was destined for publication in the journal "Nature." They were told last week it was to be the cover story."The cover picture is an X-ray crystallography image of our protein entering a cell, but it looks like, in some ways, abstract art," said President and Chief Executive Officer David Watumull. "It's cool."
The article was authored by Yorgo Modis, Steven Ogata, David Clements and Stephen C. Harrison. Ogata and Clements are from Hawaii Biotech, while Modis and Harrison are with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Children's Hospital and Harvard.
Titled, "Structure of the dengue virus envelope protein after membrane fusion," it explains how Hawaii Biotech's genetically engineered proteins behave, Watumull said.
The cover and the article can be found at www.nature.com.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
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