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Kady Pascual

Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"He’s got a good eye and a good ʻami."}]

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<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Hula skirt</title>

Today’s social media find comes from @L.Ganoy, who sees the unique potential.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Hula skirt

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Stephanie Salmons

Business & Tourism

Food & Dining

For nearly 50 years, Kimo's Restaurant welcomed visitors to the Lahaina waterfront. Now — nearly three years after the popular restaurant's Front Street location was lost in the deadly August 2023 wildfire that destroyed much of the West Maui community — Kimo's is coming home.

Parent company T S Restaurants on Thursday announced it has signed a letter of intent to develop a new Kimo's location on Front Street.

"While the company continues to explore possibilities for the original Kimo’s site as redevelopment plans for the makai side of Front Street evolve, T S Restaurants is moving forward with a new Front Street location to ensure Kimo’s returns to the community as quickly as possible," the announcement notes.

T S Restaurants will partner with business leaders Kent Untermann and Mousa Hassan who are restoring the Chan Wa Building, which will be the restaurant's future home.

“We knew bringing Kimo’s back would require not only the right location but also the right partners,” T S Restaurants CEO Jackie Reed said in the announcement. “Kent and Mousa are longtime Hawaiʻi business leaders, trusted friends and people who care deeply about Lahaina. They were among the first to reach out after the fires asking how they could help. This partnership is built on trust, shared values and a common commitment to Lahaina's future.”

, whose family of brands include Pictures Plus, CocoNene and Plus Interiors, said in the announcement, “We’re honored that T S Restaurants chose to partner with us on this project, and we’re committed to helping bring back a place that contributes to the energy, vitality and long-term future of Front Street. Kimo’s is part of Lahaina’s identity and a place that generations of residents and visitors have visited.”

 in the fire, the opportunity is personal.

“Kimo’s has been part of my life for as long as I can remember,” he said in the announcement. “Like so many people in Hawaiʻi, I’ve spent a lifetime making memories there. Helping bring Kimo’s back to Front Street is an incredible honor, and I hope it becomes another step toward restoring the heart of Lahaina.”

T S Restaurants got its start in 1977 when 

Rob Thibaut and Sandy Saxten opened Kimo's, the first T S Restaurant, at 845 Front St., on the last available waterfront parcel in old Lahaina Town. Today, the family-owned company owns and operates 13 restaurants in Hawai‘i and California. Its Hawai‘i restaurants include Duke's Waikīkī and Hula Grill 

on O‘ahu; Kimo's, Leilani's on the Beach, Hula Grill Kā‘anapali and Duke's Beach House on Maui; and Duke's Kaua‘i and Keoki's Paradise on Kaua‘i. Duke's Kona will open on Hawai‘i Island in late 2026 and Duke's at the Cove in West O‘ahu is 

Aloha State Daily caught up with Reed last month — ahead of the anniversary of the fire and before this announcement was made — to talk more about the experience during the blaze and the company's ongoing recovery.

In the aftermath of the fire, Reed, said it was assumed that Kimo's was lost, but confirmation didn't come for at least a week.

"Finally, when somebody did a flyover and filmed, that's when we were able to get confirmation, but ... from what we had heard — and then seeing some videos of neighboring buildings that were engulfed in flames — we had assumed that Kimo's had burned down as well."

But in those moments — and for a long time after — Reed says that wasn't the company's main priority.

"And it still isn't. Our main priority is our T S ‘ohana," she told ASD. "Even though all of our employees survived, some of their families didn't, and we had almost 300 of them lose their homes and all of their belongings. That's all that we were thinking about. We knew that eventually we would assess what had happened with Kimo's, but our focus was on our ‘ohana. Through the generosity of the T S owners, our guests, so many people who just wanted to help, they donated to our 

 and we were able to grant $2.3 million to our employees to help, which was really wonderful because they're on our payroll and we were able to do that quickly."

Reed had said last month that the company "definitely want[s] to bring Kimo's back to Front Street and that is a priority for us," but T S has been focused on the community and its Maui ‘ohana.

"Now that there is some activity, we're looking at all options. Of course, we would love to go back to our original location, but being that it was waterfront, that timeline seems like it's going to be a different timeline than some potential other locations, so we're continuing to explore opportunities to bring Kimo's back in hopefully what would be the first phase of redevelopment for Front Street," she said in June, noting then that nothing was confirmed at that time.

[{"type":"text","text":"Commercial rebound"}]

As the anniversary of the fire nears, commercial activity in Lahaina is starting to tick up. 

An interim marketplace and community gathering spot in development by Hawaiian Council — with support from its Kākoʻo Maui Fund and the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation — will be the first project to bring storefronts back to Front Street, Maui County said in a July 2 announcement of its launch. 

Called ‘Ulu o Lele — which means Growth of Lele and honors Lahaina's traditional name — the marketplace will be located at the former Outlets of Maui site and offer a temporary home for local businesses, nonprofits, cultural practitioners, farmers and community programming while permanent commercial redevelopment progresses, the announcement noted.

According to the county, Hawaiian Council, formerly known as the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, has secured a two-year lease for approximately three acres at the site and is leading the planning, development and implementation of the project, itself designed as an 18- to 24-month recovery initiative.

 modular retail spaces and supporting infrastructure to "quickly activate the site and create new opportunities for local businesses and organizations," the announcement says. Meanwhile, the marketplace is expected to hold approximately 25 to 50 local vendors and help sustain about 90 jobs.

On Thursday, Hawaiian Council opened a vendor interest for businesses, nonprofits, cultural practitioners, farmers, food  vendors and others interested in being a part of ‘Ulu o Lele. 

According to the July 16 announcement from Hawaiian Council, a member-based nonprofit that works to advance the cultural, economic and community development of Native Hawaiians, this is the first step in the vendor selection process and asks prospective vendors to provide information about their business, connection to Lahaina, wildfire impacts, interest in the marketplace, readiness to operate, potential space needs and their vision for contributing to "an authentic Lahaina experience," among other details.

 and will be open through Sunday, July 26. It's not an application and doesn't guarantee participation in the marketplace.

[{"type":"text","text":"A formal request for proposals will be released at a later date."}]

Overall, five Front Street commercial permits have been issued and two more commercial projects are nearing permits, according to recent information provided by Maui County. More than a dozen commercial properties are in planning consultation.

"Permitting and approvals in the Lahaina Historic districts have been one of the most heavily regulated processes in the state, involving national, state and local rules. Besides being one of the most storied places in Hawaiʻi and the Islands’ first capital, it was the only historic district in the state with buildings constructed out over the water," the county's July 2 announcement noted.

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Proposed Chan Wa Commericial Building

<title>Kimo's Restaurant set to return to Lahaina's Front Street</title>

The restaurant was among the businesses lost in the deadly August 2023 wildfire that destroyed much of West Maui community.

Kimo's Restaurant set to return to Lahaina's Front Street

Christian Shimabuku Headshot

Christian Shimabuku

Sports

The University of Hawai‘i women's volleyball team has released its 2026 schedule and is set to officially begin the 

The Rainbow Wahine will open their season with the 

Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic, playing three matches in as many days from Aug. 28-30. The 'Bows will open against Georgia Southern on Aug. 28, then will take on Baylor, Walker's former team, on Aug. 29. UH then wraps up the weekend against San Diego on Aug. 30. 

Hawai‘i has two other preseason tournaments on its schedule: the OUTRIGGER Invitational from Sept. 3-6, as well as the Lucky Aces Women's Volleyball Invitational in Las Vegas from Sept. 18-20. 

 will begin with a pair of home matches against New Mexico on Sept. 25 and 26. After 18 regular season conference matches, the 'Bows will head to the conference tournament in Las Vegas on Nov. 24-25. 

Additionally, the Rainbow Wahine have recently announced multiple changes to their coaching staffs. 

 and Nick Castello, two of former head coach Robyn Ah Mow's main assistants, have both announced their departures from the program. 

On Tuesday, Walker announced the addition of Kolby Kanetake as one of the program's new assistant coaches. Kanetake, a former standout libero for the UH men's volleyball team from 2013-2016, was the associate head coach for Chaminade before departing for his alma mater. 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Hawaii WVB 110925

<title>Hawai‘i women's volleyball releases 2026 schedule, announces assistant coach changes</title>

The Rainbow Wahine will open their season on Aug. 28 against Georgia Southern.

Hawai‘i women's volleyball releases 2026 schedule, announces assistant coach changes

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Sterling Higa

Government & Politics

Columnists

. The new law bars corporations and other “artificial persons” from spending money to influence our elections. Senator Jarrett Keohokalole, the bill’s champion, put the principle plainly: “The foundation of our democracy is that political power belongs to the people.”

The senator is right. In a democracy, political power does belong to the people. The law takes effect next July. The question then will be whether the people are prepared to hold the power that belongs to them.

Distrust of money in Hawaiʻi politics is earned. Within recent memory, legislators took bribes while in office and went to federal prison for it.

Campaign donations and paid political ads can look like bribery one step removed. The bill’s advocates reason that the state creates corporations, so the state may define their limits — including keeping their money out of our elections.

There’s a curious mix of paternalism and optimism among these “good government” advocates. On one hand, they believe voters are foolish enough to be swayed by whoever spends the most on ads. On the other hand, they suggest these same voters will govern themselves well if only the megaphones of money are taken away. But the men who founded this country assumed something closer to the opposite.

The founders read ancient history, many of them in the original Greek and Latin. They took man’s bent toward self-interest as the starting fact of politics. They built restraints to match: separated powers, staggered terms, courts insulated from the crowd.

What they founded was not a democracy but a republic, with something of the old orders built in. They gave us a President who serves like an elected king and a Senate meant to act as a natural aristocracy. Only the House was handed directly to the people, but true democracy was limited by property qualifications and racial discrimination. And the vote for the President was mediated by the Electoral College.

John Adams wrote that our Constitution was made “only for a moral and religious people.” That is why the founding generation cared so much about education. Their education was not mere job training. It was a liberal education, from the Latin word for freedom. Its purpose was to teach a man to rule himself before he presumed to rule others. Students learned history, languages, philosophy, rhetoric. And crowning it all, they studied theology — the knowledge of God.

The old colleges existed for this. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton began as schools for ministers. So did Lahainaluna, founded in 1831 to train teachers and ministers. It is often called the oldest high school west of the Rockies.

I have a friend who did everything right, as modern education counts rightness: elite prep school, Ivy League college, Harvard for law. A few years into practice, over coffee, he told me he had just read Plato’s allegory of the cave for the first time. In the allegory, prisoners sit chained in the dark, watching shadows move across a wall, believing the shadows are the world. One prisoner is freed and dragged up into the sunlight, where at first he can see nothing at all.

My friend liked the story. He read it as a story about other people. He had escaped the cave, he figured, and could now see how everyone else’s beliefs were shadows cast by the culture. What escaped him was the allegory’s caution. The freed prisoner is blinded twice — once going up into the light, and once coming back down into the dark. A man fresh out of the cave should let his eyes adjust before appointing himself liberator.

Plato knew there was a sun outside the cave. He did not know the light of Christ. Neither did my friend.

My friend is not unusual. He is the product of our “best” schools.

Many parents run their children on the treadmill that formed my friend. They choose the right preschool feeding the right prep school feeding the right college. Along the way, they mistake the résumé for the education.

David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, 

 candidates to spend several hours every day producing content. They must churn out clips for platforms where a viewer’s attention lasts a few seconds.

Plouffe is not corrupting the voters. He is describing them. And the rising political class on the left and right spends its days performing for cameras rather than governing.

A people that can be moved by a 10-second clip is not a people prepared for self-rule. And a people that rewards its leaders for making such clips deserves the leaders it elects.

The freedom we already have tells the same story. We are free to gamble on our phones, free to consume pornography without limit, free to leave a marriage for no reason at all, free to hand our children a screen so we can look at our own. These are freedoms that can be enjoyed in a prison cell. The chains are still on. They have simply been made comfortable.

Act 11 may well do what it promises. But no act of the legislature can form a soul, and the legislature should not be blamed for failing at work that was never assigned to it.

The work of reform belongs to the Lord, and it happens in families, churches, and schools. It happens as parents bring real books to the table and read them aloud. It happens in congregations that still teach the faith rather than assume it. It happens in a handful of schools, here and elsewhere, trying to recover the education that Yale and Lahainaluna were built for. The state guards the boundary of the field. But it cannot make anything grow there.

Next July, Hawaiʻi will remove corporate money from its elections. But it will leave the voters exactly as it found them. The good government advocates who backed this reform will find that removing corporate money from politics won’t cure what ails us. The rot is much deeper than a few campaign ads.

The American founders knew where the reformation of a people comes from, and it was never the legislature. Freedom worthy of the name begins when the prisoner meets the one who made the sun.

I Stock 1222208781

<title>Hawaiʻi Act 11: Why the corporate campaign spending ban can’t fix our politics</title>

Hawaiʻi’s new ban on corporate election money assumes the voters are ready to govern themselves. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why self-government can’t be legislated.

Hawaiʻi Act 11: Why the corporate campaign spending ban can’t fix our politics

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

More than 200 candidates are running for elected offices in Hawai‘i and will appear on ballots this year. See the candidates for city and county races, 

Tuesday marked the filing deadline for prospective political candidates to submit their nomination papers to run for office in the upcoming 2026 elections. The 2026 primary election will be held Saturday, Aug. 8, with the general election set for Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Here are the candidates for statewide races. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Governor"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lieutenant Governor"}]

U.S. Representative candidates, District II

State Senator District 5 (Wailuku, Kahului)

State Senator District 8 (Kaua‘i, Ni‘ihau)

State Senator District 9 (Hawai‘i Kai, Diamond Head)

State Senator District 10 (Kaimukī, Kapahulu, Mō‘ili‘ili)

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"• Incumbent Les Ihara Jr., Democrat "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"• Jackson Sayama, Democrat  "}]

State Senator District 11 (Mānoa, Makiki, Punchbowl)

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"• Incumbent Carol Fukunaga, Democrat "}]

State Senator District 13 (Liliha, Iwilei, Nu‘uanu)

State Senator District 14 (Moanalua, ‘Aiea, Fort Shafter)

State Senator District 15 (Kalihi, Māpunapuna)

State Senator District 17 (Mililani Town, Wahiawā)

State Senator District 19 (Pearl City, Waipahu)

State Senator District 20 (‘Ewa Beach, Ocean Pointe)

State Senator District 21 (Kalaeloa, Kapolei)

State Senator District 25 (Kailua, Waimānalo)

State Rep. District 3 (Hilo, Keaukaha, Kea‘au)

State Rep. District 4 (Hawaiian Paradise Park, Hawaiian Beaches)

State Rep. District 5 (Kea‘au, Mountain View, Volcano, 

Pāhala, Punalu‘u, Nā‘ālehu, Hawaiian Ocean View

State Rep. District 6 (Captain Cook, Kailua-Kona)

State Rep. District 7 (Kailua-Kona, Honokōhau)

State Rep. District 8 (Hawi, Waimea, Waikōloa)

State Rep. District 12 (Pukalani, Makawao)

State Rep. District 13 ( Moloka‘i, Lāna‘i, Kaho‘olawe)

State Rep. District 15 (Hā‘ena, Hanalei)

State Rep. District 16 (Wailuā, Līhu‘e)

Kōloa, Po‘ipū, Kalāheo, Ele‘ele, Hanapēpē, Waimea

State Rep. District 18 (Portlock, Hawai‘i Kai)

State Rep. District 19 (‘Āina Haina, Niu Valley)

State Rep. District 20 (Leahi, Wai‘alae, Kaimukī)

State Rep. District 21 (Pālolo Valley, Wilhelmina Rise)

State Rep. District 23 (Mō‘ili‘ili, McCully)

State Rep. District 25 (Ala Moana, Downtown Honolulu)

State Rep. District 26 (Makiki, Punchbowl)

State Rep. District 27 (Pacific Heights, Nu‘uanu)

State Rep. District 28 (Sand Island, Chinatown)

State Rep. District 29 (Kamehameha Heights, Kalihi Valley)

State Rep. District 30 (Kalihi, Hickam Village)

State capitol 022725

<title>Here's who's running for office in 2026, part 1</title>

Tuesday marked the filing deadline for prospective political candidates. See who's running for state offices here.

Here's who's running for office in 2026, part 1

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Tonkatsu Kuro opened earlier this year in Ward Village

, and is known for its crispy katsu and soba combo sets.

The Kakaʻako eatery recently added new dishes to its menu. Customers can also now enjoy Suntory premium malts and Kirin Ichiban, which are poured using the restaurant’s new Hoshizaki draft beer machine.

Customers can’t see the beer machine in the kitchen, but it uses an automated process to dispense the beers into glasses.

Ordering is still easy and efficient, thanks to the eatery’s digital touch screen system. Customers’ orders are delivered on one of the eatery’s robot servers.

New menu items include perilla soba and half katsu set ($28) and the spicy tsuyu soba and half katsu set ($28). The former features chilled buckwheat noodles tossed in perilla oil and soy sauce; the latter includes chilled buckwheat noodles served in the eatery’s signature cold tsuyu broth, which is blended with Korean-inspired bibim sauce. Both sets come with tenderloin and shrimp katsu.

We’re told the two new dishes are inspired by popular Korean flavors. The restaurant uses perilla oil and seeds — both from Korea — to make the perilla soba and katsu combo.

The spicy soba features a Gochujang flavor, and the chilled noodles made it refreshing. It paired nicely with the savory, ultra-crispy katsu.

While the shrimp and tenderloin katsu are both tasty, we especially like the shrimp’s large size. The shrimp katsu comes with tartar sauce for dipping. Housemade tonkatsu sauce, sesame dressing and yuzu ponzu dressing are available at each table.

Customers can still enhance their orders with side dishes like miso soup and Japanese curry.

[{"type":"text","text":"Tonkatsu Kuro is now open daily starting from 4 p.m."}]

Tonkatsu Kuro new sets 122325

<title>Tonkatsu Kuro added new dishes to its menu</title>

The new combo sets — which include perilla soba, spicy tsuyu soba and tenderloin and shrimp katsu — are inspired by Korean flavors. Customers can also now enjoy Suntory premium malts and Kirin Ichiban, which are poured using the eatery’s new Hoshizaki draft beer machine.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Hula skirt

Kady Pascual

Social Media & Marketing Manager

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Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Hula skirt

Authors

Kady Pascual

Social Media & Marketing Manager

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