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John Pritchett

Cartoons

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<title>Pritchett Cartoon: Got my mind on a panda and panda on my mind</title>

Pritchett Cartoon: Got my mind on a panda and panda on my mind

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Business & Tourism

Food & Dining

Honoapiilani Road, chances are, you’ll see the line for 

The business, which recently celebrated its fourth anniversary, is known for its huge, made-from-scratch cinnamon rolls. The reason for the line: customers can’t pre-order these rolls; it’s first-come, first-served only.

For some dedicated customers, that means lining up at 5 a.m., even though the bakery doesn’t officially open around 7 a.m.

What many customers may not know, though, according to Linda Escobar — wife of chef/business owner David Escobar — is that it takes about three days to make the cinnamon rolls.

“It’s a lot of hard work,” she says. “His labor that goes into it — he’s doing mixes and calculations — it has to be perfect.”

“I work seven days a week for us to be open four days a week,” adds chef David Escobar. “Everything’s about timing and waiting.”

Customers can get a whiff of those fresh-baked King David cinnamon rolls ($12) — flaky, buttery cinnamon rolls topped with housemade cream cheese glaze — even before setting foot in the bakery. David explains that pulling the cinnamon rolls out of the oven and glazing them in real-time — not having pre-glazed cinnamon rolls sitting out for customers — is essential to his business model. He recalls an “aha moment” he had while making doughnuts about 15 years ago.

“I would make apple fritters; I would pull them off the fryer and glaze them,” he says. “I would grab one while they were hot, and I would eat one right then and there. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Nobody gets an apple fritter like this right here.’ By the time we’re open, the fritters are sitting; customers are not getting it like how I just ate it.

“I took that concept that I learned 15 years ago and wanted to make this experience for people to have cinnamon rolls fresh — not glazed already and sitting for a while,” he adds. “It’s fresh out of the oven and served to you while it’s hot.”

While David has been a baker for 20 years — he started in a Safeway bakery in California — owning his own bakery wasn’t necessarily part of his plan. The Escobars moved from California to Maui in 2014; David worked at Safeway in Kihei as a baker, then moved to Monkeypod and, later, accepted a position at the Grand Wailea.

“That’s where he met his mentor,” Linda says. “He was a French pastry chef, and he mentored my husband.”

However, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, many employees, including David, were laid off. The Escobars started hosting prayer nights at their home, and David would cook for anyone who attended.

“David’s love language is feeding you,” Linda says. “He would literally cook for everyone on those nights. Pizza, cinnamon rolls, cheesecakes — everything you could think of, he was making it.”

During that time, the Escobars faced a personal loss — David’s father, known as “Papi,” died from Covid-19. In January 2021, while still being laid off, David remembers doing a 21-day fast and then caught Covid-19 himself.

“I was just going to quarantine myself and stay away from my family; I didn’t want to get everybody sick,” David says. “During that time, the Lord was ministering to me, saying he was going to use my baking gifts for ministry.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” he adds. “After I quarantined and got better, I started baking for (our church) youth group. I always baking for leadership groups and home groups, thinking that was what the Lord wanted me to do. But no, it was more than that. It’s what we’re doing now — it’s to bake under Him and to serve God’s people.”

David had already been making cinnamon rolls for about eight years. He says the French pastry chef had taught him how to make cinnamon rolls, but he added his own twist. He had the chance to perfect his cinnamon rolls during the Covid-19 pandemic, since he was doing a lot of home baking.  

“I was baking like crazy; I’d bake for my neighbors, who loved the cinnamon rolls,” David says. “My chef mentor taught me a different way of making it; it wasn’t traditional. A lot of my pastries are European inspired. I learned that the more you do it, you start creating your own deal.”

As businesses started opening back up during the pandemic aftermath, the idea of starting his own business was already on David’s heart. He knew it was time to start “stepping out in faith." He started buying equipment for a future bakery, even though he didn’t have an official space yet.

"I would put all the equipment in my front yard,” David says, noting that his family was living in Kihei. “My whole yard looked crazy. I was just collecting items, by faith, believing I would open up this business.”

At that time, David remembers looking at a facility in Kihei that was closer to their home and convenient to get to. But one day, as he was looking at Facebook Marketplace, he saw an ad about equipment for sale from a restaurant that was closing down.

“I messaged the contact and said I would love to come see the equipment that was for sale,” he recalls. “I drove to Lahaina, which was on the other side of where I was living at the time. As I got there, I remember seeing the whole facility was completely empty. It looked like it had been empty for a while.

“I tried to go back to Facebook Marketplace, but I couldn’t find the person I was communicating with anymore,” he adds. “I was like, ‘Somebody’s just messing with me.’ I remember calling my mom, telling her about it … but then saying, ‘Maybe the Lord wants me to be here to pray for Lahaina.’ I was literally praying for Lahaina the whole car ride home.”

While he was still trying to work things out with the potential Kihei venue, David talked to another realtor for restaurant rental spaces. He remembers the realtor mentioning larger venues on Front Street, but they were “all big and way out of my budget.”

“I asked, ‘Is there anything you guys have that’s smaller and more in my budget?,’” David says. “He was like, ‘There is one place in Lahaina; they’re asking for a lot, but we can give them an offer and see what they say.’ He told me where it was, it was that same place that I went to — the one that was emptied out completely.

“My first thought was, ‘It would be a long drive for me,’” he adds. “But then I was like, just go and make an offer and see what he says.”

The rest, as they say, is history. The Kihei venue ended up not working out, while the Lahaina spot accepted David’s offer.

“I didn’t even see the inside; I just saw the outside,” David says. “I had a good vibe there; there was something special about that place.

“I really feel like it was the Lord,” he adds. “I went over here just to get some equipment; I didn’t want the spaces on Front Street because they were too expensive. So now, I’m just here, baking away for Jesus.”

David signed the lease for the bakery’s current location in March 2022, and the business opened later that July. Coming up with a business name was a “no brainer” for David, who says it was natural to honor his father.

“My dad had just passed away; why wouldn’t I call it Papi’s?” he says. “He died in 2021, and all this was beginning right after he passed away.”

However, the name “Papi’s” was already taken elsewhere, according to Linda, who says that “Papi’s ʻOhana” was a natural replacement.

“‘Papi’ is ‘dad’ in Spanish — we called my father-in-law that — and ʻohana is family,” she explains. “But it’s also word play — Papi is God, our Father, and ʻohana represents our heavenly father’s family.

“When the Lord gave this to us, he had spoken to my husband, ‘Every person who walks through the doors are my children, whom I love,’” she adds. “I take that with such high responsibility; I make sure that every person has been seen and loved on the way the Lord would want them to be.”

When the business first opened, David remembers the menu was huge. It consisted of sandwiches, fresh breads and more.

“We were doing beignets, bruschetta, and all kinds of different stuff, but the cinnamon rolls just took over — the cinnamon rolls and pizza,” he says. “I was doing it all by myself — I had my nephew, my mom and my wife — but I was there for 20 hours a day sometimes, in the very beginning, during that first year (of business).

“I didn’t realize what the cinnamon rolls were going to be, but that was my favorite thing to do,” he adds. “I cut half of my menu out; I had to.”

Giving customers a high-quality product has always been crucial for the Escobars, who explain the business focuses on excellence, not volume.

“There’s no shortcuts; there’s no rushing the process,” Linda explains, saying that, sometimes, customers comment about their wait times upon entering the bakery. “We open at 7 a.m.-ish until sold out because it’s baking and it’s a science. We make sure it’s all coked in the right way. If the oven takes a drop in temperature, we’re not rushing the process to open the doors. We are representing the Lord, and patience comes along with it.”

When it comes to their line, Papi’s ʻOhana has a system down. Chairs are lined up right outside the bakery for the early risers, who sometimes get there by 4:30 a.m., according to Linda. A staff member comes outside to take coffee orders for those waiting in line, and once customers pay, their orders are brought to them, so they can enjoy beverages while they wait in line.

“We have umbrellas (when it’s hot); when it’s storming, we have ponchos for purchase,” David adds. “That’s part of learning … we just learned as we went along.”

The bakery is currently open from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. (or until sold out) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (closed on Wednesdays and weekends). Papi’s ʻOhana also serves pizza from 5 to 9 p.m. on the same days as the bakery, plus Saturday evenings. Customers can call the business to place pizza orders starting from 3 p.m. to reserve their preferred pick-up time.

The business features 16-inch thin-crust pizzas topped with housemade red or alfredo sauces, and fresh ingredients, according to David.

“We are using all-local farm veggies; we don’t cut corners on anything,” he says. “We’re trying to bring good-quality pizza into the community.”

Flavors range from pepperoni ($30) and Island veggie ($32) to Westside chicken ($36) — featuring roasted chicken, American bacon, creamy alfredo sauce, mozzarella and housemade garlic aioli sauce — and Papi’s all meat ($35), which includes pepperoni, sausage, Canadian bacon and American bacon.

Unique flavors include the Bella Bella ($33) — a staff favorite, comprising extra mozzarella, housemade tomato sauce, pepperoni, local oyster mushrooms and a ranch swirl — and the ʻOhana special ($36). The latter includes mozzarella, housemade tomato sauce, pepperoni, sausage, Canadian bacon, fresh jalapenos and Maui Gold pineapples, according to David.

“That one is popular,” he says. “You get sweet and spice with all the meats.”

Papi’s ʻOhana opened in July 2022; by January 2023, the lines of customers started to form. But all that came to a halt with the Lahaina fires in August 2023. The Escobars still lived in Kihei — about 45 minutes from their Lahaina shop — and remember being in “survival mode.”

“Chef just couldn’t sit still,” Linda remembers. “When we’d make our way to Lahaina, the roads were blocked — they wouldn’t let anyone in — but we had God’s favor every single time. Somehow, we were summoned to come through.

“We came through to cook for the community,” she adds. “We had no service; we were doing this all in the dark with propane — thankfully, we had a propane tank.”

For four months — from August to November — Papi’s ʻOhana fed the Lahaina community cinnamon rolls and pizzas for free, David remembers.

“Two days after the fires, we served the community four days a week — the same days we’re open now,” he says, noting that they alternated serving pizzas and cinnamon rolls on each day. “Then, people started coming back, slowly. We did a soft reopening with the bakery, but the pizzas were donation-based. We did donation-based pizzas for almost two years.

“People were affected by the fires; that problem doesn’t just go away,” he adds. “When the tourists would come, it gave them a chance to support, and we were able to bless families that were affected by the fires with free dinner.”

While Papi’s ʻOhana was trying to give back to the community, the community also helped them, David notes, saying that “everybody was donating things,” from money to ingredients.

“We hung in there to try and keep their morale and spirits up,” he says.

“Our generous ʻohana near and far helped us keep the free meals going for so long,” Linda adds.

To this day, Papi’s ʻOhana is known for being more than just a bakery, according to Linda, who says the business offers prayer, fellowship and support to all who visit. For her, the aftermath of the 2023 fires was a full-circle moment.

“What happened from our living room prayer nights during Covid-19 was happening inside our bakery,” she says. “The community was inside of our bakery — hugging, crying, laughing. That’s why Papi’s ʻOhana is so special — the people know it’s a safe place.

“People literally walk in and see how busy we are, but they will ask chef for prayer, and they know he would put down his paint brush (for the glaze),” she adds.

David remembers people asking him how long Papi’s ʻOhana would be giving away free meals following the fires.

“We were giving away food for so long,” he says. “I remember the Lord telling me, ‘Before the fires, you saw the big lines. You saw how I provided for you. Right now is a time where you’re earning Kingdom provisions. After that, when you re-open, you’re going to have double — earthly provision and kingdom provision.ʻ

“It’s pretty much manifested itself,” he says, chuckling. “Now it really is double; it’s crazy now.”

As they enter their fifth year of business, Papi’s ʻOhana already has big plans for 2027. The business is officially expanding toward Napili, according to the Escobars, who say the new space is about four times the size as their current bakery.

The bigger space will make it easier for customers to line up indoors and out of the hot Lahaina sun, according to Linda.

“We have outgrown this little spot,” she says. “We’ll have more space that we need to meet the demand. Right now, chef makes his max (for cinnamon rolls) and that’s it for the day. Sometimes, that’s at 10:30 a.m. We’ll have more space — more ovens, more electricity — so we can be more capable of providing for the demand.

“I feel bad when we sell out,” she adds. “I feel terrible because we do want to serve you.”

Linda notes that the new space is close to The Gazebo Restaurant at Napili Shores — “The Gazebo is in the back, where the beach is; our location is in the front” — but right now, the Escobars haven’t decided if that location will be the business’s new home, or an expansion.

“Everything is still up in the air,” she says, during the time of our interview in early September. “We’re trying to get our foot in the door. For 2027 — our fifth year in business — that’s our exciting news.”

Bakery is open 7 a.m. until 2 p.m. (or until sold out) Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; pizzeria hours are 5 to 9 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays to Saturdays

Papis Ohana chef David Escobar 091426

<title>At Lahaina bakery Papi's ‘Ohana, every pastry is a blessing</title>

Behind every fresh cinnamon roll is days of work and love at this family-run business. Lahaina-based Papi’s ʻOhana, known for its huge, warm cinnamon rolls, celebrated its fourth anniversary this summer. Aloha State Daily recently caught up with chef David and Linda Escobar, who tell us more about the bakery’s early days, how it got its name, and what lies ahead for 2027.

At Lahaina bakery Papi's ‘Ohana, every pastry is a blessing

[{"type":"text","text":"There’s a new Japanese sake pub in Honolulu."}]

 is tucked away within Up Roll Café Kaka

ako. The pub opened at the end of July and is currently open from Thursdays to Saturdays from 5 to 10 p.m. (happy hour is from 4 to 6 p.m.).

The pub is inspired by traditional drinking culture called Kakuuchi, where people can casually enjoy sake and small bites in a neighborhood liquor store. Maniwa strives to bring this concept to Hawaiʻi in the form of a Japanese sake pub.

While the pub’s sake selection is extensive, the eatery strives to make sake approachable to diners. Its sake discovery set ($15, $10 during soft opening) has quickly become a customer favorite, as it includes three sake tastings and a small bite (choose from the “umami bites” section of the menu).

The food menu features a variety of raw and cooked dishes, presented in small plates (izakaya-style) designed for sharing. The pressed ‘ahi carpaccio ($15) — drizzled with lemon and olive oil — chef’s sashimi selection (market price) and truffle dashi omelet come highly recommended.

The featured sashimi selection during our visit included maguro, ika and sweet shrimp.

The fluffy, Japanese rolled omelet is topped with a generous amount of truffle sauce.

Other popular dishes include oyster confit with toasted baguette ($15), creamy shrimp gratin ($13) and Kauaʻi shrimp bake with snow crab ($17).

The shrimp gratin features a creamy rice-and-cheese mixture with chunks of baked shrimp throughout.

The pub is still in its soft opening phase and will celebrate its grand opening in December. Direct message the business on Instagram for inquiries/reservations.

Open from 5 to 10 p.m. Thursdays to Sundays (happy hour from 4 to 6 p.m.)

Maniwa sake flight 090126

<title>New Japanese sake pub opens in Honolulu</title>

Pub Maniwa Kakuuchi opened within Up Roll Café Kakaʻako at the end of July. The eatery is featuring a discounted sake discovery set until its grand opening, with the goal of making sake tasting approachable and enjoyable to diners. The food menu features izakaya-style small plates, ranging from sashimi and creamy shrimp gratin to truffle dashi omelet.

New Japanese sake pub opens in Honolulu

Ray Tsuchiyama

Real Estate

Columnists

 on property stewardship, I received emails about the family conflicts that happen after parents pass away. This column is a direct response to your stories.

On a recent Sunday I strolled along the water at Magic Island, Ala Moana Beach Park. I smiled at splashing toddlers, did the shaka to sweating fathers with tongs over the hibachi, and waved at mothers carrying macaroni salad containers. Memories of my parents flood my mind. I thought my parents would live forever — but that, as we know, is not life.

Watching the happy families at the beach, I felt fortunate: After my parents' passing, my sister and I have remained close, and as I have grown older, that closeness has become one of the real joys of my life — not something I take for granted. Whatever spared my sister and me the fate of the families in this column was not luck alone. It was trust, built slowly, over years, long before there was ever anything at stake to divide.

Then came readers' emails, and unexpectedly, almost all shared one theme: my writing on capital stewardship (in Hawaiʻi: land and properties) triggered emotional responses of family dysfunction — in short, they ended up not speaking to each other.

Trust is not something a family can suddenly create after a parent's passing, when grief is raw and old roles — the one who stayed, the one who left, the one who managed everything — resurface all at once. It has to be practiced earlier, long before a house is on the table. A family that talks with each other about hard things finds a way to talk about a house, too. A family that has not will find that the house becomes the place where every unspoken grievance finally has somewhere to land.

If there is a lesson in my own life, the trust that makes an inheritance survivable is not built during probate. It is built at a Liliha dinner table or Sundays at Magic Island, before anyone imagines it will ever be tested.

But trust like that is rare — my inbox tells me so.

From one Neighbor Island reader, she said that she had an agreement with her brother regarding their parents' house after their passing – but the brother went his own way. She ended up with what she had planned for — but spent months agonizing over it, while grieving her parents at the same time.

There is a brother from Nu‘uanu who returned from Las Vegas upon his mother's passing and found he had been cut out of the parents' house sale by his two sisters. When he pointed out that he shared family DNA, the sisters pulled out an Excel spreadsheet of all their visits and expenses when their mother was cared for by the two sisters — in rotation. They are fighting in court now.

Finally, one reader from California who "married into a big Hawaiian Kailua family” witnessed the disintegration of the siblings' relationships from his wife's point of view — all about the parents' properties.

Why does it always seem to come back to the 

In Hawaiʻi real estate becomes the battlefield not because families here love each other less than families elsewhere, but because of a few structural realities almost unique to our islands.

First, for many local families, the house 

 the estate. There is no diversified portfolio, no second property on the Mainland, no stock account — just one appreciated, illiquid asset that cannot simply be cut into thirds.

Second, decades of land scarcity and appreciation mean that a home purchased for tens of thousands of dollars in the 1960s or ’70s can now be worth millions — turning a modest family house into the single largest financial event of an adult child's life.

Third, there is the caregiving imbalance that so often goes unspoken. One sibling stays — cares for aging parents, drives them to doctors' appointments, pays the HECO bill — while others build careers and families elsewhere, on the Mainland. That caregiving is real and it is costly, in both time and money. But it is rarely discussed as its own form of compensation while parents are alive. Instead, it resurfaces later, sometimes literally as a spreadsheet, as evidence in a courtroom about what is "fair."

Fourth, we have a cultural reluctance to raise estate questions with living parents. It can feel disrespectful to ask a parent what they want done with the house after they are gone. One friend's mother responded 

 So, the conversation gets deferred, year after year, until it can no longer be deferred at all.

Put together, these forces mean that in Hawaiʻi, the house does not just hold financial value. It holds every unresolved conversation a family did not have time, or the will, to finish.

When I walk on Sundays at Magic Island, watching those young families, I know they are not thinking about wills or houses. They should not have to, not yet. But someday, quietly and without warning, they will.

If I could sit down at one of those picnic tables — a kupuna intruding on a young family's Sunday beach picnic, I would not talk to them about real estate. I would tell them this: Talk to each other 

, while it costs nothing and means everything. Talk to your parents while they can still answer. Talk to your siblings while there is nothing yet to divide, and the conversation is just conversation, not negotiation. Because by the time the house is what is left to talk about, the thing that actually needed saying has usually already gone unsaid for years.

That, more than any property, is the inheritance worth passing down — and it is the one so many Hawaiʻi families do not realize we are either building or losing, one Magic Island Sunday at a time.

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ay Tsuchiyama’s series explores one central question: How does Hawai‘i use the wealth and land it already has to create its next economic future? He can be reached at 

Firefly Gemini Flash funny illustration of a Hawaii family arguing over a house theyve inherited make th 379744

<title>Why Hawaiʻi families stop speaking over a house</title>

The wealth that most people in Hawai‘i stand to inherit is typically real estate — quite often the very homes we grew up in, which are now million-dollar assets. ASD columnist Ray Tsuchiyama has advice for how kama‘āina can avoid the pain of fighting over the house when their parents are gone.

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