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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

, will drop his debut full-length album, “Hammajang,” this month on 

The album is the result of seven years of singles and extended plays in genres like reggae, hip hop and R&B. The 

singer and songwriter, who grew up in Mākaha

, has more than 375,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. In 2024, he was featured in 

Spotify’s global Asian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month Campaign

, which included appearances on billboards in Los Angeles and New York City.

His catalog of recorded music includes features from prominent artists, such as Bay Area rapper P-Lo, the Island reggae artist J Boog, and 94Tunez of Rebel Souljahz, among others. 

So far, five of the 13 singles on the new album have been released, including “Counting on You” with Franskiiz and lelz, “Shooting Star,” “Midnight Luvah” with Topshakaz, “Sarah” with Karri and “Monstah” with Nueve Lio. 

The album launch includes a concert tour in California with stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Las Vegas.

Ahead of the album’s release, Armstrong spoke with Aloha State Daily about the song “Midnight Luvah” featuring 

 in March. That song, which now has more than 735,000 streams on Spotify, features Armstrong as he sings and dances alongside … the Ala Wai Canal.

“'That’s been an idea I've had for the longest time, ever since I watched ʻLa La Land’” he said. “LA does not look like ʻLa La Land.’ I just want to put it out there. Aside from the opening scene, when they're in traffic that's the only thing that kind of feels like LA. Everything else is so beautiful. They've done such a beautiful job with lighting it perfectly, making sure they're choosing the right colors to elicit certain vibes.”

8RO8 took that as inspiration. He set up alongside the Ala Wai Canal.  

“I wanted to put a play on turning something that everybody sees all the time into something a lot more romantic and that has just a different vibe, because there's such a strong color being pushed onto it,” he said.

Most of the video was shot late in the evening, often rolling until close to midnight or later, over several days. They brought in a giant light and camera, and 8RO8 was wearing sunglasses at night. To those passing by, it was an unusual scene, he added.

“It just looks super extra, super funny, but you have to remove yourself from that so you can stay in scene,” he said.

The name of the new album was inspired by home.

“Growing up in Hawaiʻi, I think we all kind of get attached to certain phrases,” he said. “Culture is so important to developing who you are as a person. And in my case, Pidgin has been something I've always been fascinated with — especially noticing how different parts of the island interact with it. And growing up, the word hammajang was always thrown around where we're from, which is on the West Side of Oʻahu.”

For 8RO8, that means celebrating the beauty of imperfection. 

"I'm trying to turn it into this way of life," he said. "Like the most recent buzzword is wabi-sabi, when  there's a charm to it not being perfect. I'm trying to find the charm of things being hammajang, or put together — or just somehow it works."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It also fits how the album was created."}]

“It's just making things work when we don't have the resources,” said Ian Tsang

“A lot of the music videos that he does, he's actually directing himself. He's putting all the composition behind this video. The ‘Shooting Star’ music video, we didn't have a gimbal, so he put his camera on a skateboard, and he just used that to get a stable shot.”

The singer and songwriter’s motto for this year?

“There's no going back,” he said. “It's all in.”

8RO8 is one of the featured performers for the upcoming 

, California, in September. Other featured performers that weekend include Shaggy, The Green, Natural Vibrations, Wavvy, High Watah, Ekolu, Eli-Mac and more. 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

8RO8

<title>Oʻahu-based artist drops debut full-length album</title>

8RO8 talks about his debut full-length album, “Hammajang,” which releases this month. The singer and songwriter, who grew up in Mākaha, shares behind-the-scenes moments from capturing a recent music video, which was filmed in a surprising spot: along the Ala Wai Canal.

Oʻahu-based artist drops debut full-length album

Kam Napier Headshot

A. Kam Napier

Columnists

Government & Politics

 Thursday. Joining former president Barak Obama and Michelle Obama in Chicago, Illinois, were former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden, and a host of Hollywood, music and media celebrities.

Far as I can tell, no one locally has covered this event, outside of a wire service story picked up by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. If Hawai‘i Democrats attended the party, they were certainly quiet about it. You can hardly tell that, back in the day, Hawai‘i tried really, really hard to be the home for Obama’s presidential library.

Maybe, now that we can see it, kama‘āina are, like me, breathing a sigh of relief that it isn’t here. But first some backstory, before I dust off my architecture critic skills.

You don’t hear about this much anymore, but all through the Obama administration, Hawai‘i — well, maybe just especially prominent, political parts of Hawai‘i — were totally in love with Barack Obama. They were eager to claim him as Hawai‘i’s own, on the grounds that he attended high school here, and acted as if someone from the Islands had been elected directly to the White House. This one-sided love affair was in full swing when, early in Obama's first term, talk of his presidential library first emerged.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Pick me!” Hawai‘i said."}]

“The Hawai‘i Legislature has sent the White House a joint resolution that it passed last session urging Obama to pick Hawai‘i as the site for his library,” reported Dan Nakaso in the Star-Advertiser on 

We did more then send a resolution. Nakaso reported that a University of Hawai‘i working group would be created to study potential sites, designs, archive management policies and more. UH Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Reed Dasenbrock was scheduled to fly to Washington D.C. “to meet with the head of the presidential library division of the National Archives and to Little Rock, Ark., to meet with the director of the Clinton Presidential Center and the Clinton Foundation.

An especially fervent fan was UH Associate Professor of American Studies Robert Perkinson, who, while he knew Chicago officials were already pushing to have the library, said, “But I feel the stars are aligned a certain way that we are really going to fight to win this. I think we’re going to do what it takes. And that means over the next months and years developing an architectural proposal that is breathtaking and a museum that’s innovative and has a really robust public education component that could benefit all of the kids of Hawai‘i and a policy center that could really help us meet Hawai‘i’s challenges and those of the larger Pacific and the larger world.”

Not that Hawai‘i believed it could beat Chicago, where Obama’s political career actually began. In a May 27, 2011 reader poll, the Star-Advertiser found that 70% of 923 respondents thought that Chicago would win.

Four years later, Hawai‘i was in the top four locations vying for the library when Star-Advertiser political columnist Richard Borreca 

on presidential libraries who advised Hawai‘i to quit. The proposed Kaka‘ako location was unlikely to draw the foot traffic that would make it succeed, and the next steps to advance were expensive in terms of developing a “detailed master development plan for the surrounding community.” Meanwhile, Borecca noted, UH was still hot for the library, hoping it would transform the university and its stature.

[{"type":"text","text":"Ultimately, Chicago won."}]

As for the architecture of the Obama Presidential Center, I’m hard pressed to say anything original, as people have been blasting it since the final design first emerged, and more so once people could see it looming 23 stories over an otherwise low-rise, residential neighborhood. It’s been compared to a mausoleum, a headstone, to Saruman’s tower in the "The Lord of the Rings," to something the Empire would build in a "Star Wars" movie. Note: When people make comparisons of this building to movie architecture, it is always Buildings for the Bad Guys.

, based in New York City. Perhaps they hated their client. Or perhaps they were bold enough to honestly reflect the singular, monumental ego of a man who once 

 while running the first time for president, “I think I could probably do every job on the campaign better than the people I’ll hire to do it” and “I think I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

Or, when he’d won the nomination — not the presidency, mind you, just the nomination — that 

 as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

So given all those and countless other examples, it’s no surprise the architecture stands alone, angular, imposing, humorless. It resembles Soviet naked-concrete brutalist buildings but is actually clad in American granite, yet a granite so gray that they might just as well have skipped the expense and stuck with the cement underneath.

To me, the most significant detail is the tower’s near total lack of windows. This building is literally blind to the outside world and internally recursive — all views bounce back in upon themselves to see only the interior. It’s an architectural manifestation of self-absorption.

What windows the building does have are cropped into one top corner, and are obscured by a massive a massive inscription of — what else? — a quote from one of Obama’s own speeches. One cannot look out without looking through the man himself, through his words given on the 50th anniversary of the Selma marches.

 but the inscription has been rendered deliberately illegible. Yes, deliberately.

“One of the key questions I asked at the beginning was, are people supposed to read this?” said designer Micheal Bierut, who typeset the lettering with a team at Pentagram, led by designer Britt Cobb, as reported by 

. “Is legibility the primary goal here? Do we want people to be able to stand on the ground, look up at this tower, and read those words? And that was discussed on the client end, and the answer came back, ‘No, it should have the promise of meaning, it should be decipherable, everything should be spelled right and it should make sense.’”

[{"type":"text","text":"“The promise of meaning.”"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"I just rolled my eyes so hard I pulled an eye muscle."}]

Then there’s the totally on-brand, real world social and economic dimensions of the project.

The cost of construction ballooned from $350 million to $850 million, per 

. Black residents of the neighborhood have been displaced and priced out, so much so that the city of Chicago is budgeting $6 million for affordable housing to make up for it. Construction companies are still owed “hundreds of thousands of dollars to tens of millions.” Private funding came nowhere near the investment needed and the State of Illinois, all told, will have spent some $200 million on infrastructure.

Since his foundation hasn’t paid its bills, since the building and its namesake have taken so much from their neighbors, there’s actually another famous quote from Obama that comes to mind:

[{"type":"text","text":"Mahalo, Chicago, for taking this off our hands."}]

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.

Obama library Getty Images 2281570460 16x9

<title>Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i dodged a library bullet</title>

Hawai‘i tried very hard to be the home of Barack Obama's presidential library. Now the thing exists in Chicago, open to the public, over budget and overwrought. ASD Editor in Chief A. Kam Napier recaps Hawai‘i's doomed quest to secure this building and gets into what the architecture of the finished project tells us.

Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i dodged a library bullet

Gov. Josh Green signed House Bill 1860 into law

, which designates Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra as the state orchestra of Hawaiʻi. The moniker does not come with funding, although earlier drafts of the legislation had proposed that.

“We are tremendously grateful and honored to be recognized with this designation,” 

, president and CEO of Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra, told Aloha State Daily. “This distinction puts Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra on a cultural platform with other organizations that have been recognized by the state as being valuable to our culture, such as the 

. It's really meaningful because it will give the orchestra more visibility across the community. It recognizes that the symphony is important, and what we bring to the community is of value and valuable.”

The legislation was signed into law on June 5.

Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra offers more than 50 concerts annually. Its programs include the 

, which features world-renowned guests on stage; the 

 which puts local headliners — such as 

, which puts movies on the big screen while the symphony plays the score live; and the 

, which will honor America’s 250th anniversary with eight performances this summer.

ASD spent time analyzing the symphony's finances via tax filings over the years.

Between the Form 990s for 2015 (which covers July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2015) and 2024 (which covers July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024), nonprofit Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra had more expenses than revenue for seven of those 10 filings. For the 

, the symphony’s total revenue was about $5.1 million. Total expenses were about $5.27 million, leaving a deficit of $170,367.

“Just to put this in perspective, this is unfortunately not unusual across the symphony orchestra world across the country,” Iwano said. “What we do is very labor intensive, and there just are no shortcuts to bringing close to 100 musicians to the stage and getting thousands of people through the door to enjoy the live music. I can say, though, that our last fiscal year and this year will tell different stories, and making the orchestra sustainable is a priority for our board and everybody at the organization.”

Iwano, who took the helm July 1, 2024, shared the 

’s most recent Form 990 for 2025 (which covers July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025) with ASD via email. In that filing, the nonprofit had $6.4 million in total revenue 

 which was generated by tickets sales, grants, 

. Revenue minus expenses resulted in $422,983. That brings the nonprofit’s net assets to a deficit of $362,897, an improvement from a deficit of $785,880 at the start of the filing period.

Salaries are the symphony’s biggest expense, she said. About $4.3 million of the approximately $6 million in expenses listed in the Form 990 for 2025 went toward salaries, other compensation and benefits. The rest went toward concert hall rentals, production costs and more.

“The biggest cost — of course — is the orchestra itself,” Iwano told ASD. “We have 84 musicians, and on top of that, we have our production crew, and then we have our admin staff. But the orchestra is by far the largest portion.”

The predecessor of Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra was 

 to reorganize, and the following year converted to 

“We do hope that the designation will give people more confidence that we are here to stay,” she said. “That it will help to tell our story and support fundraising in that way.”

 have been one way to help the symphony continue its work.

“We're talking to people more and more about how legacy gifts can impact the symphony,” Iwano said. “That's one of the main ways that we see to make our ongoing situation sustainable.”

The symphony has also been working to reach new listeners, and participated in a collaboration with the Polynesian Voyaging Society for a symphonic piece about the double-hulled voyaging canoe, 

 for Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” in March. There are also other programs 

, which partner with local organizations.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"State orchestras are rare, Iwano added."}]

“We're determined more than ever to serve the whole state, so we're also looking at ways to reach out to the other islands,” she said. “To take our music and our musicians out — beyond Oʻahu — and to other parts of Oʻahu, beyond Honolulu.”

Sometimes that means taking smaller groups to untraditional spaces.

“For example, this past April, we sent chamber ensembles from the orchestra to six different medical centers and health facilities,” she said. “And in February, we did a project called 

 for Valentine's Day. We sent chamber ensembles all around the city. They played at the farmers market and at 

. We really want everybody to join in celebrating our symphony in all these different ways.”

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra

<title>Governor designates state orchestra for Hawaiʻi</title>

Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra has a new title, which comes with statewide recognition. Amy Iwano, president and CEO of the nonprofit, shares what this means for the organization. Aloha State Daily takes a closer look at the symphony's finances over recent years.

Governor designates state orchestra for Hawaiʻi

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

As the halfway point of 2026 approaches, a bevy of new laws are set to take effect.

[{"type":"text","text":"Here’s some of the new state laws to look out for starting July 1:"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Shipping costs will likely increase"}]

, a measure authorizing annual automatic cost adjustments for interisland shippers for the next several years.

While interisland shippers — which, in effect, means Young Brothers LLC — have had to apply for approval from the Public Utilities Commission for any rate changes, starting in July, the PUC can develop and apply a “water carrier inflationary cost index automatic adjustment mechanism,” which will apply annual cost adjustments without any need for applications.

Those adjustments cannot be more than 5% each year, and are intended to reflect annual changes to the Department of Transportation’s wharfage rates.

The automatic adjustments are scheduled to go into effect July 1 of each year through 2032.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Your jet ski joyrides are going to cost more"}]

, increases penalties for various nautical misadventures, including:

[{"type":"text","text":"• Violating speed restrictions on a boat or jet ski,"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"• Reckless or careless operation of a vessel or jet ski,"}]

• Operating a vessel or jet ski without valid safety education or insurance coverage,

[{"type":"text","text":"• Unauthorized mooring of a vessel or jet ski,"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"• Operating a vessel or jet ski while intoxicated,"}]

• Serving, selling, drinking or possessing alcohol within state small boat harbors or boating facilities,

• Abandoning an animal within state small boat harbors or boating facilities,

Each of these violations will be considered a petty misdemeanor and will incur fines of up to $1,000 and a possible jail term of up to 30 days.

Your fish market must tell you where your ahi comes from

Lawmakers were concerned in 2025 that, due to a loophole in seafood labeling requirements, vendors were not disclosing the country of origin for ahi tuna products.

Because of this, lawmakers found that a substantial percentage of ahi products sold in Hawai‘i claim to be “prepared fresh” or “locally made” despite using foreign-caught and pre-frozen ahi.

 requires large retailers selling any raw processed ahi in Hawai‘i to include a label stating the fish’s country of origin.

You can take family leave if a family member is deployed

Currently, Hawai‘i's family leave statutes does not align with federal family leave laws, which have allowed spouses, children or parents of active-duty military members to take family leave when those family members are deployed overseas.

, which Green signed into law in May, changes this. Beginning in July, employees with military spouses, children, siblings, grandchildren or parents will be allowed four weeks of family leave per year for “qualifying military exigencies,” a phrase that refers to a person’s active-duty deployment to a foreign country.

Anyone claiming said family leave will be required to provide a copy of official military orders for documentation.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Your building permits could come through faster"}]

 allows people applying for building permits for single-family and multi-family housing projects to request to have their permits expedited.

Starting July 1, an applicant can send a request to their county for an expedited permit if 60 days have passed since the initial complete application without the county’s approval.

Eligible projects must not be located within flood hazard areas or on storm-vulnerable shoreline parcels, and must still be stamped by licensed engineers.

The expedited process is temporary; however, by July 1, 2031, it will be repealed.

Your charitable donations will have a clear destination

, requires solicitors that collect donated property such as clothes to disclose where those donations are actually going.

While people may believe that the items they donate actually directly go to charities, this isn’t always the case. In many cases, the solicitor merely sells the items, and donates some or all of the proceeds from that sale to the charities.

Act 112 requires solicitors to clearly disclose who operates a given collection receptacle and whether the donated items will be sold and the proceeds paid to a charitable organization. It also requires those solicitors to inform users as applicable whether their donations are tax-deductible contributions.

Said solicitors are also required to provably pay proceeds to a charitable organization within 45 days.

State capitol 022725

<title>New laws coming in second half of 2026</title>

Several new laws are set to take effect beginning July 1. Here are some highlights.

New laws coming in second half of 2026

De Soto 2025

DeSoto Brown

Hawai‘i History

Many people will be familiar with the fountain at the far end of Kapi‘olani Park, close to the base of Diamond Head. Since it’s been there for almost 60 years, it’s understandable that few will be aware that this is actually the third water feature in this area.

This story starts in 1912 with the ascension to the Japanese throne by Emperor Taisho. Thousands of Japanese immigrants in Hawai‘i at this time still felt strong ties to their homeland, so their pride in their original culture  made many of them want to support the suggestion of the Japanese Consul in Honolulu that a monument to Emperor Taisho be erected in a public place in Honolulu. This concept was proposed at the time of his ceremonial coronation in 1915. The Honolulu Board of Supervisors agreed to accept the planned fountain as a gift; it was to be 20 feet tall and topped with a metal sculpture similar to one in Hibiya Park in Tokyo. The pool at its base was planned to be 25 to 30 feet in diameter. November 10, 1916 was the targeted date of the structure’s dedication. 

Actually achieving this idea, however, did not take place on schedule. A celebratory “carnival” held at the Japanese Consulate in November 1915 attracted thousands of attendees who paid a steep admission of $1 each (comparable to over $30 today), which raised nearly $8,000. This was not enough though, and another fundraiser program at the Honolulu Opera House in December 1915 netted another $200, but this was still $800 short of the goal. 

All the elements of the fountain were to come from Japan. In March 1916, completion was stated to be in “a few months.” But it wasn’t until November that the 228 carved stone pieces actually arrived by ship and the finish date was now projected to be February 1917. And this in fact turned out to be when all the stone work ended up in place, which was noted by an inscription in the structure’s base. But still not received were all the metal parts, which, like the stone, had been ordered from the Tokio Fine Arts College. The fountain stood incomplete for the rest of the year. 

In May 1918 work was to “commence soon” as the metal elements were expected in early July. Except … none of it got to Honolulu till September. This consisted of the iron phoenix which would stand with outspread wings at the top, plus two bronze basins, one larger than the other. By January 1919, completion (as usual) was expected “in a month or two.” By now the total cost was over $10,000.

At last, the dedication ceremony was scheduled for February 11th. But in the same pattern already established, this had to be postponed due to continuing casualties in Honolulu from the terrible flu pandemic that had begun killing millions of people internationally the previous year. So it was not until after this medical emergency subsided that on March 16, 1919 — nearly four years after the initial announcement of the project — it finally, really, was finished. 

As can be seen by the photos included here, the complex structure was undeniably dramatic. Water issued from the beak of the phoenix at the top and ran down into the smaller bronze basin, from which it overflowed into the next, larger basin below it, before finally reaching the round pool at ground level. However, most surviving photos of the fountain show no evidence of running water and it’s possible that the supply was eventually just turned off. The entire monument was noteworthy enough without it. 

Considering the years of effort and fundraising to erect the fountain, it was unfortunate that the ruler who was honored by this impressive structure was both physically and mentally incapable of actually performing his imperial duties. Emperor Taisho was withheld from public and ceremonial appearances from 1919 onwards and died seven years later. 

Then came World War II. After the shocking surprise attack on the island of O‘ahu by the Japanese military on December 7, 1941, all things associated with this new enemy were treated with suspicion or outright hatred. The showy fountain, not surprisingly, felt the effects of this rejection. The City & County of Honolulu Parks Board received letters from the public calling for the monument to be demolished, and the board itself was in favor. It was hoped that the metal contained in the structure — derided as being merely iron along with (incorrectly) “cheap brass” — could be melted down to be turned into war munitions of some kind, to symbolically be used against Japan.

As manpower and equipment were busy with other war-specific jobs, there was a brief call for citizens to gather and literally pull down the structure by hand. However, City & County workers did the job professionally on December 14, 1942, a year and a week after the infamous attack that had started the war. Some of the artistic handwork of the fountain appears to have been saved, like the four large stone dogs that stood around the base of its pedestal, along with four carved vertical panels. But once this vengeful destruction was completed, the park was left without a water feature — for a time.

In August 1949, the City & County of Honolulu accepted a contractor’s bid of $10,784 to build a new Kapi‘olani Park fountain which was to be completed by December of that year. This was not located in the same spot as its predecessor; it was more towards Diamond Head in what was called the “Kalākaua Avenue Circle”. This was a round island in a park roadway that had been started in late 1941 but wasn’t finished probably until late 1945 and which mostly paralleled the original Kalākaua Avenue that was lined by ironwood trees, closer to the beach. Far simpler than the previous ornate Japanese fountain, this new 1949 version consisted of just a shallow round pool with a single jet of water in the center. In turn, this lasted until 1967. 

The unassuming pool was then considerably improved to become the Louise G. Dillingham Memorial Fountain which was dedicated on July 27, 1967 and remains in use today. Funded by Mrs. Dillingham’s adult children and family friends and constructed by Hawaiian Dredging, the new fountain was accepted as a gift by the City & County of Honolulu. It contains multiple jets of water of different heights, like the classical ones found in public squares in Europe, and was designed by Edwin Murayama and Albert Ely Ives. Its honoree had been a member of Honolulu’s Department of Parks and Recreation from 1931 until her death in January 1964, and she and her husband Walter had lived in the estate that they had constructed nearby known as La Pietra. This still remains today on the slopes of Diamond Head not far from this fountain, housing a private girls’ school of the same name.

As attractive as the current fountain is, we can regret that the unique tribute to Emperor Taisho did not survive. Its outstanding craftsmanship might not even be possible to replicate today, and it would be an outstanding attraction of Honolulu if it still stood in Kapi‘olani Park.

8 Kap Park fount 2026 16x9

<title>The saga of the fountains</title>

The fountain we all know and love near the Diamond Head end of Kapi‘iolani Park is not the first fountain in the area, nor is it in the original location of the first fountain. ASD history columnist DeSoto Brown takes us through the fountain's story, all the way back to its original source — Imperial Japan.

The saga of the fountains

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

 is opening its third location this weekend. The new store is in ‘Aina Haina Shopping Center (in the former spot of 

), and will be celebrating its grand opening at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 13.

This new store marks the brand’s third Oʻahu location and second opening in less than a month following its recent 

Waikīkī expansion at Park Shore Waikīkī Hotel

“We wanted to capture something in east Honolulu,” says operations manager Zayne Chong. “This space opened up in 

‘Āina Haina, and we thought it would be a good fit for Oakberry on the East side.”

The business is known for its natural acai that features no dyes, corn syrup or artificial preservatives. Customers can choose from popular items like the crunchy bowl — acai with chia pudding, granola, strawberry, blueberry and cacao nibs — and the matcha bowl, which comes with acai, double matcha chia pudding, strawberry, goji berries and honey. Acai smoothies are also available.

Create-your-own acai bowl options are also available. Choose from toppings like peanut butter, almonds, chia pudding, cacao nibs, honey, granola and more.

Customers who join the business’s email list can get a free, classic-sized Fruity bowl on grand opening day.

‘Āina Haina store will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends.

Open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends

Oakberry Aina Haina original 061226

<title>Oakberry Hawaiʻi is opening its third store in ‘Āina Haina</title>

The new store — located in ‘Āina Haina Shopping Center, in the former space of Uncle Clay’s House of Pure Aloha — will be celebrating its grand opening at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 13.

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