Liam Martin, left, executive chef at the Kona Brewing Co. in Hawaii Kai, holdsg a strawberry salad and Don Ardissone, lifts one of his beers. Ardissone is the new manager of the Kona Brewing Co. restaurant at Koko Marina Center.
Manager looks
for community focus
Don Ardissone
» Named general manager of the Kona Brewing Co. restaurant and pub at Koko Marina, which opened in December 2003.
» Ardissone started his career in Saipan with a food-and-beverage internship at the Pacific Islands Club. He later moved to Japan and worked at a restaurant bar, then moved to the Big Island to switch to a slower pace. He most recently served as restaurant manager for Pahuia at the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai.
|
Four Seasons is very, very corporate. It's a great place to work -- I love the people and work but I wanted something more my style. I'm not really a fine-dining guy. I enjoyed the wine side of it. I like the pairings of beer with food. The jobs are similar in that respect. I like the family atmosphere and attention to environmental issues at Kona Brewing. And community. At Four Seasons, you're removed from the community. Here it's really the focus of the company, trying to be a locally based company, Hawaii Kai instead of Waikiki.
What environmental issues does the restaurant support?
Last Sunday, we did a Blue Water Challenge with single-man canoe races, giving away two single-man outrigger canoes, and all the proceeds are going to the Sierra Club's Blue Water Campaign: Anytime you see water pollution, you can call a team on the spot to fix the situation.
How is the Hawaii Kai restaurant working out in the first year?
I just came in three months ago. They had a busy start and were not quite ready to take it on the way they wanted to, so over the course of the year they made some tweaks. We're launching a new menu with new entrees. We are asking what the community wants. Now the company has been on Oahu, they've realized what the people in Oahu want. We're bringing in a new executive chef from Gordon Biersch. We're going to be doing a New York steak, three different fish items, mac-nut mahi and ahi. A big pork chop, large entree items. The Kona location is more pizza, salad and sandwiches. We're doing a taro burger from Maui, vine-ripened Hamakua tomatoes, taro-encrusted crab cakes. Live entertainment, want to have it seven nights a week. We want to be the Hawaiian music hot spot of Hawaii Kai. We're going to be sponsoring keiki hula here. We'll pay for the keiki hula lessons if they come down and dance for us. Lots of changes. New wine list as well. It will be a small list with fun eclectic wines. They may be reasonably priced but are great little fun wines. You can have wine or beer and have high end of both. Right now they have a single tier of inexpensive wines.
Any plans for opening more restaurants?
Absolutely. Really it hinges on the success of this restaurant itself. The plan is to open a couple more here on Oahu, probably in similar type areas as Hawaii Kai where it's local-based community, not tourist-based, and then possibly an extension to outer islands as well, Maui and Kauai. Liam Martin, the new executive chef, and I will be able to head up some of that, with our background in the corporate world in structuring restaurants.
