STAR-BULLETIN / 2001 Chef Sam Choy hosts a cooking class at his Sam Choy's Diamond Head restaurant on Kapahulu Avenue.

Rising costs doom Sam Choy’s eatery

Some Diamond Head workers will move to the Nimitz restaurant

Local boy-turned-celebrity chef Sam Choy is shutting down his namesake restaurant due to escalating business costs.

His upscale flagship restaurant on Kapahulu Avenue, which has been in business for 13 years, will close tomorrow.

The Kona restaurateur will consolidate the Diamond Head location with his casual Breakfast, Lunch & Crab and Big Aloha Brewery eatery at 580 Nimitz Highway, which will be renamed Sam Choy's.

About 25 employees will be offered jobs at the Nimitz restaurant, which seats 550 customers and has about 125 workers.

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Hawaii's celebrity chef Sam Choy is closing his flagship restaurant on Kapahulu Avenue tomorrow after 13 years.

Rising expenses have forced the Kona restaurateur to consolidate his upscale namesake Diamond Head location with his casual Breakfast, Lunch & Crab and Big Aloha Brewery eatery at 580 Nimitz Highway, which will be renamed Sam Choy's.

About 25 employees will be offered jobs at the Nimitz restaurant, which seats 550 customers and has about 125 workers.

"Margins were getting tighter and tighter, so it just made sense to consolidate the restaurants into one at the larger location on Nimitz," said James Lee, Choy's business partner, though he did not disclose financial details.

Choy, who was cooking at a food and wine festival in Wyoming yesterday, is contemplating trying a new restaurant concept at the Diamond Head location, which opened in 1995 and is owned by the Lee family. That restaurant has 175 seats.

"Sam Choy's Diamond Head had a great run and we introduced both kamaaina and visitors to what is now known as Hawaii regional cuisine," he said yesterday in a statement.

This fall, Choy plans to renovate the Nimitz restaurant, which opened in 1997, and introduce a new dinner menu including some of his most popular Hawaiian regional cuisine.

Adverse economic conditions affecting consumer confidence nationwide -- such as rising gasoline prices, cost of living and unemployment -- are playing a role in declining restaurant traffic, industry experts say.

Choy has opened restaurants on the neighbor islands that have closed down in recent years, including one on Maui because of disagreements with business partners. His first stand-alone restaurant opened on the Big Island in 1981, moved to Kaloko Industrial Park and then shut down in 2004. He also had a large restaurant in Japan that closed in 2005.

Choy, one of Hawaii's best-known chefs and a cookbook author, also creates and markets salad dressings and other trademark foods.

Sam Choy's Nimitz location opened in 1997 and will honor gift cards from the Diamond Head restaurant. He also operates a restaurant in Guam and has three franchise locations in Japan.