writing and editing
"From Small Bar to Three Locations, Hukilau’s Spirit Grows"
Published in the Nichi Bei Times, January 1, 2006.
To tell the story of the Hukilau restaurants is to tell a story of 1) food and 2) friends. Everything about the business, from its beginnings to the way it’s currently operated, centers around these two things.
With three locations in San Francisco, San Jose and Palo Alto, the Hukilau restaurant brand, begun by three guys from Hawai‘i, brings its own take on the islands to the Bay Area.
The restaurants serve a variety of Hawai‘i food that is quickly becoming familiar, even to non-natives. However, it is the aloha spirit that the owners say sets them apart from places that serve similar faire.
This particular story of food and friendship traces its beginnings to more than a decade ago, in San Francisco’s Japantown.
Kurt Osaki, originally from Kapa‘a, Kaua‘i, was a newly independent designer after three years at Warner Brothers in Santa Rosa. Moving to San Francisco, Osaki quickly became a fixture in Japantown.
“There was this place called Akasaka, it’s a Korean place now,” he says. “This guy from Hawai‘i originally ran the place, Ken. He was actually a uncle of one of my really good friends who became my roommate too.”
Huh?
Pay close attention because much of Hukilau’s story unfolds like this.
Osaki was offered a sushi-making job at the restaurant, an opportunity that he jumped at.
One of the items on Akasaka’s menu was poke (pronounced poh-kay, not poh-kee, a Hawaiian dish of raw fish and seaweed, similar to chopped, spicy sashimi).
“So during this time, someone orders a poke dish. I’m like, this guy’s gotta be from Hawai‘i if he orders a poke dish,” says Osaki.
The poke order came from Eric Tao, a Hilo native who was attending law school at Hastings.
“From that night, it started,” says Osaki. “Not like it was a soft introduction, we partied.”
“We met through that medium, food and drink,” says Tao.
When Osaki’s design business began to pick up, Al Omoto, of O‘ahu’s Ewa Beach, “the cousin of a friend of a friend,” took over Osaki’s sushi-making position.
“Al was working at the Ritz Carlton at the time and in the evenings he would come to the sushi bar so I said, ‘Eh, Al, you wanna make some extra money?’” recalls Osaki.
In the meantime, “I was getting to know the Japanese community really well. Paul Osaki (no relation, the executive director of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California) kept pushing me to open a restaurant in Japantown, Hawai‘i related. There’s so many Japanese Americans up here from Hawai‘i.”
The result was a tiny bar, located in Isuzu Restaurant on the corner of Post and Webster, which began on April 7, 2001. It was “so small, literally, a bar that I could almost stretch my arms across,” says Osaki.
“It wasn’t to start a business,” says Tao. “It was to have our own bar; every guy’s dream.”
Since both were busy with their respective jobs, the pair brought in Omoto, “a lovable guy” who had just left his Ritz Carlton job. Omoto’s endearing quality, combined with his hospitality experience, made him a perfect match.
“So Al ran the place,” says Osaki. “We used to take over that entire restaurant sometimes ÷ it was like, packed with people. The only thing we made was poke and Portuguese sausage. The place was happening.
“So we realized, ‘Eh, this would be big here.’ People loved it. Plus, it was small enough that the whole concept was, whoever came in, we should introduce ourselves and we should introduce them to everyone else in the bar.” says Osaki.
After about a year, though, the restaurant decided to end the partnership.
Undaunted, and confident in their idea of a friendly, “feels like home” place, the partners searched for another spot to continue the Hukilau.
They “stumbled” upon their current San Francisco location, formerly called The Pub, which was owned by Joe Ishizaki, also owner of the Japanese restaurant Yamato.
Ishizaki and his wife were looking to sell the restaurant and offered the trio a good deal to take it over.
“So, in our usual way ÷ low budget, lot of energy ÷ we decide we’re gonna open in a week, which is just crazy,” says Osaki. “It happened fast, back then we were a lot more na•ve and stupid.
“So all of our friends come over, scrub the place down…painting parties every night…I remember sitting in there four o’clock in the morning, putting things up,” says Osaki.
“Me and Kurt built that grass roof,” says Tao, pointing to the large addition extending out over the bar.
They opened in 2002, “on a Hawai‘i Festival weekend or a Cherry Blossom Festival weekend ‘cause I remember we were doing something else in Japantown the night that we opened,” says Osaki.
They followed with a San Jose Japantown location in January 2003 and most recently, in Palo Alto, which opened in 2004.
From the beginning, the restaurant was as much about the atmosphere as it was the food.
“Anyone can sell the food we sell, anyone can serve the same drinks we serve,” says Osaki, stressing that the difference is in the vibe that they strive to create.
While they’re “not fine dining, we don’t want to be,” they’re also not simply a fast-food take out place.
“There are a lot of other places but not with wooden plates, no orchids, no live music,” says Tao, pointing out their attention to details.
They aim to be a place where “you don’t have to be dressed a certain way, you don’t have to act, you don’t have to speak a certain way, you can come in and just be yourself and feel comfortable,” explains Osaki.
“We wanted to make sure that it wasn’t a place that only Hawai‘i people came to. The Hawaiian spirit is about sharing and being open, so I said ‘We gotta make sure that our food crosses over.’”
“It’s about togetherness, about being inclusive, not exclusive,” offers Tao.
One example of crossing over is their pork adobo, a Filipino dish that has become part of Hawai‘i’s mixed cuisine. Hukilau’s version is not as vinegary as its traditional style, an intentional twist on the recipe to make it more palatable to those not used to the strong flavor.
“We wanted to do something simple, hearty, a kind of mixture of things,” says Osaki.
The restaurant is also known for its “poke bar.”
“Poke is our main feature,” says Osaki. “San Jose has an island, like a bar, where we make poke. I wanted to make different pokes. I wanna make this won ton poke that you fry really quick…”
Among their endless list of ideas for the restaurant include updating the menu and eventually, expanding to the East Bay.
In the meantime, the partners keep busy with their other ventures, both individual and joint.
Omoto runs the San Francisco location full-time, while newest partner Rodney Park, a Kalani High School graduate from O‘ahu, is a dentist who also spends much of his time at the San Jose and Palo Alto Hukilau locations.
Osaki’s design firm has created logos for the NFL and the University of Hawai‘i Warriors and Tao stays busy as a developer with AGI Capital Group, which counts amongst its projects the SoMa Grand, to be located in San Francisco’s South of Market area.
The partners have also been pivotal in the formation of business connections with the Hawai‘i Chamber of Commerce of Northern California (HCCNC). Begun in 1999, the HCCNC’s goal is to create a bridge for Hawai‘i people who want to do business in the area, from finding a location and resources to assisting with promotion. Created by Tao and Osaki and Park, the organization now has over 3,000 members.
Hukilau also does catering out of its Palo Alto location and hosts some events, all with the goal of sharing the food and culture of Hawai‘i.
The restaurant hosts an annual Hukilau Poke Festival and Spam Musubi Eating Contest. The poke festival winner is flown to Hawai‘i to represent the region at the Sam Choy Poke Festival. This year, Hukilau’s contestant was one of the winners of the Hawai‘i competition. The Spam musubi eating champion consumed eight blocks of the mystery meat/rice/nori treats in just three minutes.
There is also the just-released “Live from the Hukilau” CD, featuring music performed at their three locations.
It, like all of their other ventures, says Osaki, is just another way of sharing their love of Hawai‘i and it’s aloha spirit outside of the islands.
“Where else can you go, in another state, where there’s a Hawai‘i Chamber of Commerce? Hawai‘i Clubs at universities?” he asks. “No other state has that. Hawai‘i is so unique and we should be proud of that. Our restaurant is our vehicle.
“If you really sit down sometimes in Hukilau and just listen, it’s incredible how people get to know each other,” he continues. “I think people appreciate that…you know when you go to a new place, meet new people, you feel a little bit uncomfortable, of course. But I think Hukilau breaks through those barriers.”