Businesses want to return to Lahaina. Can they afford to wait for the rebuild?

LAHAINA — When customers walk into Cool Cat Cafe’s new location in Kīhei, owner Sean Corpuel wants them to feel like they’re still eating burgers on the open-air terrace of the Lahaina Wharf Cinema Center. 

Everything in the new restaurant is designed to look, smell and taste like the former 1950s-style diner that burned down in the August 2023 wildfire. They recreated the round tables and booths and crowdsourced Elvis records, Marilyn Monroe photos and other ‘50s-themed memorabilia from the community. 

“We really wanted people to walk in and just feel like it was before,” Corpuel said.

But there are some things he can’t replace, like the quiet mornings on Front Street after pulling an all-nighter at the restaurant, or the sound of the mynah birds chattering in the banyan tree.

Corpuel would love to go back to Lahaina. But he’s one of the many business owners who’ve been forced to relocate because they can’t afford to wait the several years it will likely take to rebuild Front Street or develop a business park for displaced shops and restaurants. 

Now, with rebuilding of homes underway and more than 90% of commercial properties cleared of fire debris, business owners say the time is now to start rebuilding Lahaina’s once-bustling business district and bring back the jobs needed to keep the town going as people return to their homes. 

“There needs to be more effort put into helping stand up businesses as well, because that’s got to go hand in hand,” said Sne Patel, president of the LahainaTown Action Committee and a member of the Maui Economic Recovery Commission. “If we don’t do that, I fear there’s going to be individuals whose houses are built back, but they don’t have the jobs anymore that they once had, and now they’re struggling to pay their mortgage or provide for their family.”

LOSING EMPLOYEES, SHIFTING LOCATIONS

The night before the wildfire swept across Lahaina on Aug. 8, 2023, Caleb Hopkins and his wife took their young daughter out for dinner at Sale Pepe and shave ice at Breakwall. 

“We ate it at the pier and watched the boats and it’s like ‘Oh my God, this is how you’re going to grow up,’” Hopkins remembered thinking. 

But now, Māla Ocean Tavern and Coco Deck, the restaurants Hopkins owns along with the three other partners of Hana Hou Hospitality, are among the only businesses still standing and in operation along Front Street, along with mainstays like Star Noodle, Honu Oceanside and Old Lāhainā Lūʻau.  

“You step into Māla and you’re stepping into a time capsule, you know, you’re walking back into something that just doesn’t exist anymore,” Hopkins said Friday.  

“It’s small, but it’s something, you know?” 

Over the past year, Lahaina has watched many businesses fold or move away. According to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, the number of businesses in Lahaina reporting zero employees increased from 422 in June 2023 to 622 in June 2024. 

A report released by the University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization in October noted that almost 40% of the lost employment has been recovered since its lowest point in September, but this is still more than 4,000 fewer jobs than before the fires. Unemployment on Maui has improved from 7.9% in October 2023 to 3.6% in October of this year, though that remains the highest of any island and above the statewide average of 2.9%.

In April, Maui County released a survey of 290 Maui business owners, including 106 from Lahaina, who came primarily from tourism and hospitality, retail, and food and beverage. Just over half, or 52.4%, said their business location had not changed since the fire, while 47.6% said that they either did not have a location or physical space or that their location had changed. Of those who moved, 75% said it was because they lost their building in the fire. The businesses reported that they’d had to let more than 1,900 employees go.

When the 106 Lahaina businesses were asked what area of the island they’d be most interested in, 49 said they were not interested in moving and another 43 said West Maui. 

The idea of keeping displaced businesses in West Maui is what is driving plans for a Lahaina Business Park, which made the cut as one of the 40 proposed projects in the county’s draft long-term recovery plan, which was released last month. 

Envisioned as a hub of shops, entertainment, restaurants and community gathering space, the project is expected to cost $6 million and take 3-5 years to develop. Potential locations include state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands property in Honokōwai, a parcel across from Launiupoko Beach Park or a strip of land just off Kai Hele Ku Street.

But finding space isn’t the only problem — the fire also dealt a big blow to Lahaina businesses’ workforce.

Cool Cat Cafe had about 75 employees before the fire, and Captain Jack’s Island Grill, another restaurant Corpuel owned along Front Street, had about 60. Corpuel said losing the buildings “pales in comparison” to the stress of trying to track down his workers in the days after the fire.

One employee, 57-year-old grandma-to-be Jeannie Eliason, died in the blaze. Many others left the island in the months that followed. Corpuel was only able to retain 27, whom he put to work helping with the rebuilding. Eventually, they were able to expand to about 100 employees at the new Kīhei location.

Corpuel loved being in Lahaina, but he couldn’t turn down the chance to lease a near-turnkey space in the Kukui Mall. In its new location, the restaurant has seen its customer base shift from 75% tourists and 25% kama‘āina when it was on Front Street to the exact opposite. 

The month after they reopened in June was like one big “Lahaina reunion.” A family who attended Lahainaluna with one of Corpuel’s kids said they cried over a burger because it was like being back on Front Street. Another couple who ate at the diner on the night before the fire came back to order the exact same meal they’d had that night — a “Don Ho” burger, frings (fries and onion rings) and a milkshake. 

The longtime businessman is now outfitting a space at the Sands of Kahana Resort to serve as the new home of Captain Jack’s, with an opening slated for mid-December. He said if there were ever a chance to return to Lahaina, he’d want to open another Cool Cat Cafe and another Captain Jack’s, “a little crazy,” but something he can hope for. 

Down the Hatch, another restaurant under the Hana Hou Hospitality umbrella, had 127 employees before the fire. Javier Barberi, one of the owners, estimated that about 60 stayed on Maui. Many longtime staff members moved off island because they couldn’t find jobs, and to make matters worse, the fire had destroyed both Barberi’s home as well as the 12-bedroom home they used to house employees in the heart of Lahaina. 

Māla Ocean Tavern, which reopened in February, is now a “hodgepodge” of about 65 workers from Māla, Down the Hatch and Duckine, a former Asian fine-dining restaurant across the street from Māla that is also owned by Hana Hou Hospitality and has been rebranded as Coco Deck.  

Even though the restaurants survived, reopening wasn’t easy. Barberi said they weren’t allowed to access the restaurant until November 2023, and by that time it was so full of biohazards that they had to don goggles and hazmat suits to wade through the mess. There were pans of fish that had been sitting in the hot Lahaina sun for three months and bottles of wine that were basically “cooked.” 

They kept the hot cooking equipment but got rid of every single pan, fork and knife and all the refrigeration equipment overgrown with black mold. They replaced the carpet and renovated the whole restaurant. 

Barberi said it cost about $650,000, including $100,000 for the destroyed wine. The owners had to dip into their personal savings because they were underinsured.

“It was definitely challenging during that timeframe, a lot of emotions,” Barberi said. “When money is tight, people start to get scared, and they’re not as positive.”

In addition to cleaning out the fire-damaged buildings, the owners were juggling the opening of Pineapple Robot, a bar at the Honokōwai Marketplace that they’d sought permits for months prior to the fire and were eager to get rolling to make up for the revenue they were losing at Māla and Duckine. They finally secured their building permits in May and held a grand opening on Halloween. 

Barberi says he’s been a glass half full kind of guy through it all because he has no other choice. And for him, drawing up plans and rebuilding has been healing. 

“We’re getting the town back,” Barberi said. “I know other people are doing those things on their end, and I see every day when I drive into town, all the houses being built in Wahikuli, and it makes me feel happy, and I can’t get down about anything that I have no control over. It’s just wasted energy at this point.”

IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?

One of the biggest challenges of the business community after the fire is finding affordable space to lease amid limited inventory and high rent, said Patel, whose LahainaTown Action Committee also lost its offices in the fire. Plus, with tourism still down 13% through the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same time last year, it’s just not worth it for businesses to pay higher rents that could be offset by visitor spending.

Patel, who sat on the Economic Recovery Commission as it considered ways to help boost the economy post-fire, said that’s part of the purpose the business park aimed to serve, along with becoming a space for the community to gather.

“Lahaina was one of those places where people came and gathered, and we’ve lost that right now,” he said. “Everyone’s kind of disconnected.”

But with the project still in the design stage, it’s unclear what the funding would cover and what the buildout would look like over the 3 to 5 years. When asked for more details, Maui County said that the Office of Recovery didn’t have additional information.

“There have been discussions about a Lahaina Business Park, but no determinations have been made about the location, funding and other details,” the county said in a statement. ”The initial concept for the business park was to provide a place for businesses destroyed in the wildfire to re-establish, but other businesses from West Maui and other areas also could be included. Again, it’s important to note that this is a conceptual proposal and part of a draft plan that has not been finalized.”

For the businesses, the timeline isn’t soon enough. Corpuel said the longer businesses wait to reopen, the longer they risk losing employees. 

“That’s the difference between business and government,” Corpuel said. “Government moves like the Titanic, and they (businesses) don’t have the cash flow to wait around … so they have to make other decisions, and I’ve lost a lot of good people that have moved off the island because they either can’t afford to live here, there’s no work at the moment, or there’s no place to live.” 

Barberi likes the idea of the business park but is also uncertain about the future.

“If the time is right and everything’s good and the numbers are right, then we’re happy to jump on board,” he said. “But three to five years is a long time. Things change, you know?” 

But Barberi also wondered why the money would be spent on a business park instead of rebuilding Front Street. When it comes to generating revenue for Lahaina and the county, he said, “Front Street is what people want.”

Kaleo Schneider is one of the property owners waiting to rebuild on Front Street. Her family owns the stretch of buildings next to the Lahaina Public Library that essentially formed “the corner of the main street,” with businesses like Lappert’s Ice Cream, Wyland Gallery and Lahaina Sunglass Co.

Schneider said the family is “in a limbo state” as they wait for the cleanup to finish and decide how to proceed with a complicated rebuild that includes historic buildings and structures that once jutted out over the water, overlapping county and state territory.

“There’s a lot of moving parts we’re not sure what we’re gonna be allowed to do or not do, but we’re going to make some concessions probably depending on what the state needs us to do,” Schneider said.

She added that there’s a perception that all of the Front Street owners are Mainland residents or corporations, but some are local families like hers who have passed the properties down for generations from her great-grandfather Antonio D. Furtado, a butcher and postmaster general for Lahaina, and her great-grandmother Lucy Napela Furtado, a teacher at King Kamehameha III Elementary.

“These buildings have been in local families’ hands for a long time,” she said. “So I’d like to see that Hawaiians support other Hawaiians keeping their Hawaiian lands.”

Leil Koch, who owns the building at 744 Front Street that used to house Fleetwood’s on Front Street and retail shops like Billabong and European Vintage Posters, said he’s ready to go as soon as his building is deemed sound. Built in 1916, the structure has survived two fires with its 2-foot-thick concrete walls intact. Koch says all his former tenants, including Fleetwood’s, want back in once the space is rebuilt. But he said the timeline depends on how fast the county moves.

Koch doesn’t believe the solution is building more business space away from Lahaina town. He thinks it’s more about streamlining the permitting process — for example, taking the same traffic study for all businesses preparing to rebuild on Front Street instead of forcing all of them to do the same study over and over in the same area. 

The county created a dedicated permitting office run by the contractor 4LEAF to expedite applications for rebuilding homes in the burn zone. Barberi thinks they did a “wonderful job” on the residential side and hopes businesses will get the same opportunity. 

Of the 148 commercial lots damaged in the fire, 134 had been cleared of debris by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as of Monday, according to the county’s recovery dashboard. Seven building permits on four properties have been submitted thus far, with none issued yet. 

Front Street’s rebuild is made more complicated because it is located in the special management area, which runs along the shoreline. That requires more permitting and brings concerns over sea level rise and coastal erosion.

“The County Department of Planning is meeting with certain commercial properties owners to provide the path forward on permits,” the county said in a statement on Friday. “Those in the SMA will more than likely need approvals by the Maui Planning Commission under the SMA Major process. The Planning Department is committed to creating a process to ensure adequate permit processing.”

When asked what businesses could do in the meantime, the county said that it “continues to work with various organizations to offer events for business owners and the community to participate in local markets and pop-ups featuring Maui artists and businesses from around the island through the holidays.” A schedule of events is available at www.mauirecovers.org/communityevents.

Koch said he and his fellow Front Street owners are all pretty set on staying in Lahaina. 

“We see the merit of hanging together, of trying to build back what is very special about Maui and about Lahaina, about protecting the cultural integrity of Lahaina. … It’s important to have those discussions,” Koch said. “But you can’t be like a deer in the headlights here. And that’s kind of what everybody is acting like.”