The first time I went to Teshima’s, it was for their Japanese breakfast. I’d heard from a friend, a coworker, even the cashier at Foodland, that I had to try it. It was early on a Sunday morning, and we were headed to the Kona Green Farmers Market in Kealakekua. I already knew the building. It’s a landmark in South Kona, sitting beside the historic Daifukuji Soto Mission in the small town of Honalo. With its bright red roof, neon strip lighting, and glowing sign, Teshima’s looks like it belongs to another era. That makes sense: it’s been in continuous operation since 1929.
Inside the restaurant, paper lanterns cast a soft, red glow and shoji-style partitions divided the space into warm dining rooms. Even though it was my first time here, the waitress greeted me like an old friend and slipped a plumeria behind my ear. I was struck by the warmth that radiated from every corner, comfortable booths lined the walls, which were filled with old black-and-white photos from the Teshima family’s past.
Teshima's Restaurant, 1957 (Courtesy Teshima's Restaurant) 
The restaurant as it appears in 2025. (Andrea Cavaliere)
The story of Teshimas Restaurant began across the street. In 1899, Goichi Hanato immigrated from Japan and opened the Hanato Store, one of the first shops in South Kona. It quickly became a gathering place, and even hosted church services before the neighboring Mission was built. Nearly three decades later, in 1929, his daughter Mary married Fumio Teshima and struck out on her own. Mary was the owner and the heart of the business. At a time when women were often shut out of entrepreneurial life, her love for cooking and her community helped shape Teshima’s into what it is today.
Noelani Greene, Mary Teshima’s great-granddaughter, showed me a black-and-white picture of a round wooden counter.
“That’s her bar,” she said. “That was the beginning of it all.”
We sat in the main dining room as she explained the history captured in the photos around us. “At that time it was during prohibition, so there wasn’t alcohol. They started with saimin and shave ice.”
It’s worth seeing Teshima’s as more than just a restaurant. It’s the story of a family moving through global currents. Its beginnings unfolded during a moment of upheaval: prohibition, the Great Depression, and a Hawai‘i that was not yet a state. War was stirring in Europe, Japan was under imperial rule, and through it all Mary and Fumio ground ice in the heavy Kona heat. Their original ice house can still be seen in the parking lot, now used for general storage.
By the 1940s, World War II had reached South Kona. American GIs came for ice cream but also asked for hamburgers, which Mary quickly learned to make. Those new flavors joined the old ones, turning the menu into a microcosm of Hawai‘i’s food story: Japanese, American, and local traditions all sitting on at one table. “They did saimin, they did shave ice, they did hamburgers… it just kept expanding in stages until it became what it is now,” Noelani explained. By the 1950s, Teshima’s had grown from bar, to saimin shop, to a full sit-down restaurant.
With these changes came new additions. In 1957, Teshima’s reached its present form. Today, its low red roof stretches like a wide-brimmed hat against sun and rain, while a stone wall anchors its whitewashed exterior. Red trim frames the lanai, a design that reflects both the plantation-era sensibility of Hawai‘i at the time and its Japanese influence. For decades it has lived comfortably along the Māmalahoa Highway, not just as a restaurant but as a record of South Kona’s history — told in its food, its walls, and the way customers are still welcomed like friends. Mary lived to the age of 106, passing in 2013. Even in her final years she remained a presence at Teshima’s, serving tea to guests and spending time with the large family that gathered around her.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter!
