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[{"type":"text","text":"Not a fan of bees..."}]

Smile 26 6 4

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, June 4, 2026</title>

Not a fan of bees...

Daily Smile: Thursday, June 4, 2026

Katie Helland Headshot

Katie Helland

Arts & Entertainment

Aloha Spirit

Today, U.S. Army Sgt. Isaac Atkins will join his platoon for a watch party for the next episode of Season 21 of “America’s Got Talent,” where Atkins is one of the featured contestants.

Atkins, who is stationed on Oʻahu, is one of several contestants, including Bruno Mars’ nephews — the North Shore-based brothers 

 — competing in the current season of “America’s Got Talent.”

“I’m having a watch party with my soldiers on base,” Atkins told Aloha State Daily. “Obviously, it's just a platoon internal thing, where my soldiers — the soldiers that I'm in charge of — we're gonna ... watch the show and have a good time.”

, when the episode streams on Peacock at 

 New this season is the judges’ callbacks round, where select acts, including Atkins, are asked to perform again, and the final remaining live show spots are on the line.

The episode was filmed over several months, including during the 

 but Atkins has not been able to talk much about it prior to airing. While in California, he made sure to visit a food spot, which is not currently in Hawaiʻi.

“I wanted Chipotle," he said. "I got off the plane at LAX, and I took a Lyft to the hotel, but I asked my driver to stop at Chipotle first, so that's the very first thing I did.”

For Atkins, the “America’s Got Talent” stage is the largest of his musical career so far. His previous performances include one in high school, where he had a solo with his choir, he said, but this was different.

“It was crazy because when I was up on the stage, I had the earpieces in, but I could still hear the audience — how loud they were,” he said. “It was super encouraging when I was singing to hear them cheering. It amped me up even more, even though I was still extremely nervous, because who wouldn't be? I’m not an experienced performer. I'm just some guy.”

Atkins grew up influenced by his father’s music, which included classics such as The Temptations, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Smokey Robinson and Motown.

“I grew up on all that music,” he said. “That's really the kind of music that inspired me to sing because it's just classic. It's never going to go out of style, and I still listen to that to this day.”

, where he posts videos of himself singing in the car.

“It was never really my intention to take it to this level,” Atkins said. “But I was doing the car singing thing — and I started getting a lot of traction on TikTok and whatnot and getting the likes and getting comments. That kind of motivated me to take it that step further. And to be able to venture out into doing something this big like ʻAmerica’s Got Talent.’”

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Isaac Atkins

These North Shore brothers will be featured in Season 21 of “America’s Got Talent.” Tune in Tuesday, June 9, to catch their performance.

Nyjah Music and Zyah Rhythm

'America’s Got Talent' has Hawaiʻi contestants

<title>Hawaiʻi contestant competes tonight in ʻAmerica’s Got Talent’</title>

This Army sergeant got his musical break when he recorded himself singing in a car. Now, Oʻahu resident Isaac Atkins is reflecting on the “America’s Got Talent” auditions that recently took him to California.

Hawaiʻi contestant competes tonight in ʻAmerica’s Got Talent’

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Crime & Courts

A debate over whether elephants are “people,” legally speaking, will go to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court.

In 2023, the Nonhuman Rights Project — a Florida-based nonprofit dedicated to challenging the legal status of animals — filed a petition in the First Circuit Court in Honolulu on behalf of two elephants at the Honolulu Zoo, Mari and Vaigai.

That petition was a writ of habeas corpus, a legal mechanism calling for a court to review and overturn a person’s potentially unlawful imprisonment. Even non-human animals like elephants, the petition argued, have a right by common law to bodily liberty, and the petition requested that the court order that Mari and Vaigai be released to an elephant sanctuary.

Whether Mari and Vaigai can legally be considered people became the central issue in the ensuing court case, which has been appealed up to the state’s highest court: the state Supreme Court accepted a petition to hear the case last week.

This wasn’t the first time the Nonhuman Rights Project has argued that habeas corpus applies to non-human animals in general or elephants in particular: the New York Court of Appeals heard a habeas corpus petition by the Nonhuman Rights Project on behalf of an elephant, Happy, who was kept at the Bronx Zoo.

While the New York court ultimately ruled against the Nonhuman Rights Project, that they heard the case at all “refuted the irrational and arbitrary notion that only members of the species Homo sapiens may invoke the protections of the Great Writ,” the Honolulu petition read.

“As societal norms and knowledge about nonhuman animals evolve, so too must common law,” the petition went on.

That additional knowledge about elephants made up a substantial portion of the Honolulu petition, going into detail about the animals’ sophisticated cognitive abilities and potential for self-awareness.

Mari, 50, and Vaigai, 40, were born in the wild, but were respectively gifted to the Honolulu Zoo 44 and 34 years ago as gifts by the prime ministers of India at the time. Since then, they have lived apart from any other animals of their species, something the petition called “undeniably cruel,” given elephants’ highly social nature.

The petition also claimed that the conditions of the Honolulu Zoo are detrimental to the elephants’ health. Both animals are obese, the petition claims, and only have access to an “impoverished environment” for stimulation.

”When the elephants are not simply standing and feeding, they can be seen walking between the front and back yards on the same path every time,” the petition read. “Mari and Vaigai’s lives are nothing but a succession of boring and frustrating days, damaging to their bodies and minds, and punctuated only by interaction with their keepers.”

While the First Circuit dismissed the petition in 2024 — arguing that habeas corpus under the common law are only available to humans — the Nonhuman Rights Project appealed the case to the state Intermediate Court of Appeals.

That court ruled in January in support of the First Circuit’s decision. By that point, the legal argument revolved around the legal definition of “person” and whether it specifically means “human” in all instances. Writing for the majority opinion, Judge Keith Hiraoka wrote that “person” and “animal” are considered separate legal categories throughout common law, for example as relating to theft of property including animals or anti-bestiality laws.

Nonetheless, the debate will continue in the Supreme Court, although future court dates have not yet been scheduled.

[{"type":"text","text":"Aloha State Daily reached out to the Honolulu Zoo for comment."}]

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Honolulu zoo elephants

<title>Are elephants people? State Supreme Court to weigh in</title>

Two Honolulu Zoo elephants, Mari and Vaigai, are at the center of a Supreme Court case about the rights of non-human animals.

Are elephants people? State Supreme Court to weigh in

Yamachika Tom IMG 1913 Large

Tom Yamachika

Viewpoints

Government & Politics

Medicaid is a joint federal and state government health insurance program that helps provide medical coverage for people with low incomes and limited resources. Medicaid is basically a federal program that states can opt into by setting up a program that complies with federal rules. In return, the federal government provides significant funding for the program.

One of the federal requirements is that the participating state have resources in place to identify and prosecute those who are trying to abuse the Medicaid system. Hawaiʻi has a 

Our MFCU has been having some issues. Recently, 

Vice President J.D. Vance pilloried the state

, calling Hawaiʻi’s Medicaid fraud enforcement a “complete disgrace." 

“Not a single indictment, not a single conviction, because the administrators of the Hawaiʻi program just don’t take it seriously,” he said.

On the next day, the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services 

 to our Attorney General, Anne Lopez, to announce that our MFCU was being decertified. Decertification endangers the ability of the state to receive federal funding for not only the MFCU but also its entire Medicaid program.

The Feds cited, and our AG did not dispute, that MFCU obtained zero indictments and zero convictions in calendar years 2021 through 2025. They also described, in their letter, that our MFCU’s problems date back more than a decade. They mentioned that Office of Inspector General personnel conducted on-site interviews and investigations of our MFCU in 2014 and 2019, on both occasions identifying what they called serious performance deficiencies. They mentioned that they worked with our MFCU to come up with a corrective action plan and implement it, but the unit’s performance still was not up to snuff.

Indeed, the unit may have been having some problems way before then. A Hawaiʻi Supreme Court opinion in 

, 68 Haw. 343 (1986), told the story of a psychologist that was indicted on 32 counts of Medicaid fraud in 1984. The state’s theory was that the psychologist was treating his patient without a proper medical referral. But, after evidence came out in the trial showing that the patient in fact had obtained a proper referral, the state changed theories and persisted with the prosecution because the referral was late. The jury acquitted Dr. Sword of 31 of the 32 counts, and the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court tossed out the conviction of the one remaining count because of the prosecution’s switcheroo. (This seemed like a weak case to begin with. Luckily the good doctor is still practicing on one of our Neighbor Islands, and hasn’t decided to go to the airport with a one-way ticket out of here.)

On the same day that the MFCU decertification was announced, 

 saying that he would create an “independent Medicaid Fraud Strike Force” within our Department of Human Services, the mission of which is to “help identify waste, fraud and abuse, recommend corrective actions, assist in the recovery of taxpayer dollars where appropriate and strengthen systems designed to protect Medicaid recipients and public funds.”

We are hopeful that this episode will serve as a wake-up call. We cannot be complacent. There are bad actors out there. If they aren’t caught, they will make life more difficult and more expensive for the rest of us law-abiding folks.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Related ASD content:"}]

Health insurance concept illustration

<title>Community Voices: Medicaid Fraud Control</title>

Hawaiʻi's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit was recently called a “complete disgrace" by  Vice President J.D. Vance and was decertified. In response, Gov. Josh Green announced that he would create an “independent Medicaid Fraud Strike Force” whose mission is "to help identify waste, fraud and abuse, recommend corrective actions, assist in the recovery of taxpayer dollars where appropriate and strengthen systems designed to protect Medicaid recipients and public funds.” Let's hope this action catches the bad actors.

Community Voices: Medicaid Fraud Control

Kam Napier Headshot

A. Kam Napier

Columnists

Do lawmakers own computers? Do they ever go on the Internet and look things up? Things like, “The cost of owning and maintaining a convention center,” for example.

I ask because I’m looking at stories about the Hawai‘i legislature nickel-and-diming the Hawai‘i Convention Center's repair and modernization budget. The place suffered from chronic leaks pretty much since it was new in 1998. In January, the center closed to everything but local events for two years to finally fix the roof. As the costs for that project have grown to now $87 million, state lawmakers said no to funding an additional $55 million in related repairs and modernization.

As a result, the center is likely to reopen for business in 2028 and still leak. And this is really its first major renovation in 30 years.

, Jerry Gibson, president of the Hawai‘i Hotel Alliance, and Teri Orton, the Hawai‘i Convention Center general manager, have their say on the impacts of this legislative penny-pinching.

Its worth a read and it got me looking into what other cities spend on their convention centers.

Hawai‘i competes against the world for meetings and conventions, and what the competition is spending on their centers makes us look like we’re trying win an F1 race with a golf cart.

Take, for example, Orange County, Florida, centered on and around Orlando, with a population little bigger than Hawai‘i’s at 1.53 million.

 to expand the Orange County Convention Center, adding 1.15 million square feet of exhibit space. Our reps grumble and cancel $55 million, while one town in Florida says yes to spending half a 

Also in Florida, the Tampa Convention Center opened in 1990, just eight years before our convention center. Tampa itself has a population of 408,000 while the greater metropolitan area boasts 3.42 million, double Hawai‘i’s population. In 2023, the Tampa Convention Center 

 worth of work: new meeting rooms, upgraded ballrooms, upgraded restrooms and concession stands, improved lighting, painting and carpet throughout the facility and improvements to its riverside outdoor event space.

[{"type":"text","text":"How about California?"}]

Palm Springs is not big. Just 45,500 live in Palm Springs proper, while just over half a million live in in the larger Indio-Cathedral City-Palm Springs metropolitan area. Populationwise, it’s half of Hawai‘i. The region gets 14 million visitors a year, of whom 6.4 million stay overnight.

The Palm Springs Convention Center was built in 1984 and expanded just 20 years later in 2005. Today? It’s in the project approval phase of 

 to modernize the center between November 2026 and 2029.

“This $135 million project will ensure that the Convention Center continues to serve as the region’s premier gathering place for conferences, exhibitions, and community events,” say organizers at the project’s website.

Note the words “ensure” and “continues.” Palm Springs leaders aren’t sitting around wondering, “How come we have to keep paying for this thing?” They're saying, “of course we have to, or we’ll get left behind.”

Further north, we find San Francisco and its Moscone Center. That center had completed a capital improvement project 

 of $56 million (that’s $81 million in today’s dollars). The money was spent not only on the buildings but on a marketing campaign to enhance its reputation.

[{"type":"text","text":"Did San Francisco then say, “That’s it! We’re pau!”"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"No, and not just because they don’t say “pau” in San Francisco."}]

expanding and improving Moscone North and South.

“According to Tom David, executive vice president and chief sales officer for San Francisco Travel Association, the expansion was driven by the need to both keep and attract convention business,” wrote 

“The driving force from key convention groups was to modernize the building to keep it relevant,” David said.

[{"type":"text","text":"But that’s not all!"}]

“San Francisco has secured more than $40m in private-sector funding to revitalize its downtown core,” 

Conference & Meetings World last October.

“The initiative includes several measures to support business events. The city is redesigning its outdoor event permitting process. New entertainment zones will be created on Ellis Street, Maiden Lane, Jackson Square and Claude Lane. What’s more, the city reports that twenty new liquor licenses have been approved for the hospitality zone. This expands dining and nightlife options.”

That’s what San Francisco is doing for the neighborhood around its convention center. What are we doing?

Well, I’d just note that when you look out through the giant glass windows of the Hawai‘i Convention Center lobby, the most prominent nightlife option is … Club Rock-Za.

[{"type":"text","text":"A strip joint."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"What about the rest of world?"}]

Curious lawmakers might want to visit the home page of 

, the International Association of Convention Centres, which has 203 member convention centers members from 55 countries.

[{"type":"text","text":"As of May, it welcomed two new members."}]

 in Uganda, a $45-million public-private project that opened two years ago and is able to accommodate 19,000 attendees with “17 futuristic conference rooms.”

The other new member is the Sofia Event Center, in Bulgaria. Until 1989, Bulgaria was a member of the Soviet-led Warsaw pact, enemies on the opposite side of the Cold War from us. Now it has a convention center 

 where entire walls are floor-to-ceiling flat-screen TVs, like some kind of sci-fi holodeck.

[{"type":"text","text":"Can Hawai‘i compete … with recovering communists?"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Not with this track record. "}]

Lawmakers grumbling about the escalating costs of fixing the convention center in 2026 should look in a mirror. The center asked for $64 million for all this work 

, and all it got from the Legislature was a measly $15 million. Of course, the project costs more now. The water leaks, and inflation, have had four more years to do their damage.

By all means, lawmakers, expect the center to spend the money wisely. But you have to realize, this is a state facility competing in a global market. What the convention center is, and what it could be — that’s on you, not on Orton or Gibson. Our competitors are making investments of 

while you won’t spend a tenth that to keep the place from leaking when it rains.

If comedian Sebastian Maniscalco hasn’t trademarked the punchline by now, I have to ask, “Aren’t you embarrassed?”

A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.

I Stock Hawaii Convention Center

<title>Pipikaula Corner: State blowing it on convention center</title>

Hawai‘i lawmakers seem to think they own the only convention center on Earth, because their approach to investing in the Hawai‘i Convention Center ignores any sense of the marketplace. Towns the size of Hawaii‘i, in terms of population and visitor counts, are investing hundreds of millions in their facilities just to keep up with what the convention market wants, while we cheap out on the cost of fixing leaks.

Pipikaula Corner: State blowing it on convention center

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

Business & Tourism

 is often synonymous with brunch and oceanfront dining — at least on Maui

’s West side. The eatery was the first restaurant to reopen its Front Street location following the August 2023 Lahaina fire.

“We closed on Aug. 8, 2023, and reopened on Feb. 1, 2024,” says Ashley Davis, co-owner of Māla Ocean Tavern and its sister restaurant, Coco Deck Lahaina. The restaurants are a few of several under 

The eatery has been a staple in the Lahaina community. While Davis and her business partners bought the restaurant in November 2018, it’s been open since 2004. Prior to it being Māla, Davis was told the space was a former barbecue spot, then a biker bar in the 

While the eatery is especially busy during dinner — “people want to come there for sunset,” according to Davis — its brunch is also a hit. Prior to 2018, brunch was only available on the weekends.

“The previous ownership did not do brunch every day; that was something we implemented,” she says. “A lot of people work on the weekends; who doesn’t want to have brunch every day? Māla’s brunch is at a very affordable price point for oceanfront dining.”

Māla’s brunch is offered daily from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Popular options range from eggs Benedicts and chilaquiles to ube hot bread with whipped honey butter and lemon ricotta buttermilk pancakes.

“I feel like we have been adapting since we bought Māla,” Davis says. “When we had the opportunity to own it, we wanted to keep it Māla; we didn’t want it to change. We were just getting our rhythm and stride (after buying the restaurant), and then we were in the Covid-19 pandemic (two years later).”

She says the eatery had its first “normal” month in July 2023 — in that business was more consistent to what it had been prior to the pandemic — and then the fires happened that August. While the restaurant building suffered damage, due to the strong winds, none of the physical building burned, according to Davis.

“The building definitely suffered damage, most of it from wind, and we did have smoke damage,” she says. “We were very close to the fires; it’s really remarkable that Coco Deck — called Duckine, at the time — survived; it’s a completely wood building, very old. The houses right next door burned down; Māla was right across the street.”

The aftermath of the fires was “devastating,” according to Davis, who says there were numerous challenges associated with reopening. But, it was important for the restaurant owners to stay in close contact with its employees. Davis says she views the restaurant’s employees as family.

“We wouldn’t have done it (reopened) if our teams didn’t want to come back,” she says. “There are so many employees that worked for us at Down the Hatch (our sister restaurant on Front Street that was lost in the Lahaina fire) that work for us now at Māla, Coco Deck and Pizza Paradiso (another sister restaurant). They stuck with us; they’re our ʻohana.”

Davis says that, following the 2023 fires, many restaurant employees had homes that were lost in the fires and had to relocate.

“When we spoke with our employees that were still on Maui, those people wanted to come back to work,” she remembers. “They were ready to come back to work; they were ready to have that sense of normalcy.

“I can’t believe we’re coming up on three years (since the fires); it’s really wild,” she adds. “When you start talking about it, you get emotional just thinking of everything that happened and all the people that were affected. But we wanted to continue what we were doing and have something for our community.”

Davis remembers feeling apprehensive before Māla reopened on Feb. 1, 2024.

“We were a little worried that people might be upset with us,” she says. “But there was a lot more support than we expected, and it was a really beautiful thing. The first month (we were open) was overwhelming because a lot of people would come in just to remember. It would be quite emotional as they said they could step back in time — because when you’re in Māla and you look out at the water, it looked the same.”

Chef Alvin Savella and general manager Robert Farrell — both owners of Coco Deck Kitchen + Bar — were instrumental in Māla Ocean Tavern’s reopening, according to Davis. At the time, Coco Deck Kitchen + Bar was still called Duckine.

“We hadn’t re-branded Coco Deck yet; we opened as Coco Deck in September,” she says. “Thankfully, chef Alvin — who was born and raised in Lahaina — and Rob Farrell, whose wife is born and raised in Lahaina, are our business partners. Both of them previously worked at Māla; they were very familiar with the business, and they were the ones who got things going (for reopening).”  

Māla was able to reopen with the majority of its menu, with the exception of a few dishes.

“At the time, we sourced our bread from a bakery that was lost to the fires; there were a few things we had to shift gears and had to find a substitute,” Davis says. “A lot of our purveyors are not based in Lahaina, but some of the farms we worked with were affected. The fires impacted so many people.”

Some of the dishes from Māla’s early days — like ‘ahi bruschetta, oyster shooters, and seared ‘ahi — are still on the current menu, according to Davis.

“The ‘ahi bruschetta is definitely a dish that originated at Māla with the flax seed toast; it’s now with a whole grain toast that we’re making in house,” she says. “The oyster shooters come with ponzu and a little lemon wedge. The seared ‘ahi tuna on the dinner menu had a different name (before), but the preparation of the dish is similar.”

She notes that the Hawaiian whole fried fish, served with a black bean garlic ginger butter sauce and local veggies, now features an updated presentation.

“The whole fish is something that is still there (from before); prior, it had a little more of a Mediterranean feel,” Davis says. “We’re always going to have the whole fish and the wagyu burger; people love that.”

The eatery now has an in-house baker, so Māla’s pastas, breads and pastries — including cinnamon rolls and cinnamon buns — are made in house.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The current restaurant scene"}]

Davis describes the restaurant’s reopening as “gradual.” While the community did show up to support the eatery, she acknowledges that “it was hard for people to go and see it (Lahaina) all gone.”

“It is shocking still, even though most of the debris is cleaned up,” she says. “It’s still shocking to drive into town and have town not be there. It took people time.

“People will come into the restaurant and talk about what they did in Lahaina, dropping into Kimo’s or Down the Hatch,” she adds.

At the time of our interview in May 2026, all of the businesses surrounding Māla have reopened. Davis notes that Star Noodle — popular for its fresh noodles and Asian-inspired dishes — relocated to a different space on Front Street.

“Thank goodness for our neighbors,” Davis says. “We wanted them to open up; we couldn’t wait. The encouragement of our team and our people helped us (reopen), and that helped them (surrounding businesses), too. It helped all of us in our ability to move forward.”

Māla, along with its sister restaurants, continues to provide local residents with a 20% kamaʻāina discount. It’s something the restaurant has always done, according to Davis.

“All of our restaurants have a 20% kamaʻāina discount; we’re always hoping our kamaʻāina come,” she says. “We want our residents and community members to be coming into the restaurant; the visitors will follow.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"An update on Down the Hatch"}]

 — opened in 2015, and was one of the Front Street restaurants that was lost to the Lahaina fires. Davis shares that the restaurant will be reopening in Kaanapali. At the time of our interview, paperwork had been signed and permits were applied for; the eatery is expected to reopen next year, according to Davis.

“It’s going to be a different journey; it’s in a completely new location,” she says. “Prior, (in Lahaina), we were across from the banyan tree, and you had all that foot traffic, which was amazing. It was in the wharf, so it was all these different floors.

“We’ve taken over an existing location that needs some work,” she adds. “What will be nice about it is it’s in a good location for the community; it will be walking distance for all the guests that come from Kaanapali.”

Davis confirms that Down the Hatch’s menu will be the same, and customer favorites like the lava lava shrimp — crispy shrimp with lava lava sauce — and lobster and crab stuffed grilled cheese will be available.

“The feel (of the restaurant) is going to be the same, and some of the employees will be the same,” she says. “That’s the hope and we’re going to do our best to adapt to the circumstances. Hopefully, when people come in there, they’re going to have a little bit of a feel of what it used to be.”

 — will be involved with Down the Hatch’s reopening. According to Davis, Savella oversaw and brought new menu items to Down the Hatch around the same time he joined the team at Māla Ocean Tavern, before he had the opportunity to open Duckine (now Coco Deck).

“It’s great to know that he’s on board and we’re going to have that opportunity,” Davis says. “We’re getting approved for our permits right now. We want to be there for the community; that’s a huge reason why we’re doing this.”

While exciting plans are in the works for Down the Hatch, Davis wants to thank the community for its ongoing support, and encourages both Maui residents and visitors to support West Maui’s businesses.

“The support of our community has been so beautiful,” she says. “It’s the people that make the place, and that’s how I feel about Māla. It’s really from the back of the house to the front of the house — our people that show up every day and give their all, and genuinely care. That’s really what I’m most grateful for.

“Thank you also to the community, the people that come in; the stories don’t stop,” she adds. “We’ve been a part of so many people’s journeys. Those are beautiful memories and we’re honored to be in a spot where we can keep something alive. This small little strip of restaurants is going to be part of the history of Lahaina in a different way than it was before.”

Mala Ocean Tavern staff clean up Photo courtesy Mala Ocean Tavern 060426

<title>A staple in the Lahaina community: Māla Ocean Tavern</title>

The restaurant, located on Front Street, officially reopened in February 2024 after closing due to the August 2023 Lahaina fire. Māla Ocean Tavern was the first restaurant to reopen on Front Street following the fires, and continues to serve as a popular spot for brunch and dinner in West Maui.

A staple in the Lahaina community: Māla Ocean Tavern

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

 take place today — Monday, June 15 — in Chicago.

Hawai‘i's Neale Asato, owner of Asato Family Shop, is up for recognition 

in the outstanding pastry chef or baker category.

, "embody exceptional talent and leadership within the independent restaurant industry," the James Beard Foundation noted.

Although several Hawai‘i restauranteurs and chefs were named as 

 earlier this year, Asato was the only one from the Islands to advance.

Aloha State Daily spoke with Asato in April about his nomination. You can 

He told ASD at that time that it's an honor to be recognized by the James Beard Foundation, but was quick to add that his family helped build the whole business.

"I think it's great for Hawai‘i to be recognized for what we're trying to do," Asato said in April.

Asato Family Shop, known for its sherbet made in “local kine” flavors, opened a new spot in Waikīkī late last year. Read 

. ASD's food and dining reporter Kelli Shiroma Braiotta also shares more about some of the company's more unique flavors 

 starting at 6:30 p.m. eastern, 12:30 p.m. local time.

Daily Smile: Thursday, June 4, 2026

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