City wants kama'aina to have brunch in Waikiki
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
Imagine colorful blue umbrellas over silver metal cafe tables where people gather for morning coffee, an omelette, a sip of juice.
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The Champs Elysee? Piazza San Marco? The Plaza Mayor?
The city hopes its new Sunday brunches on the beach will convince local people to join tourists on the sands of Waikiki.
No, welcome to "Brunch on the Beach" a new chapter in the renaissance of Wakiki.
The city announced yesterday it will close Kalakaua Avenue for two blocks between Ka'iulani and Lili'uokalani avenues on one Sunday morning a month beginning July 15 to create an outdoor cafe where local residents and visitors can enjoy Hawaiian entertainment and sample food from the finest hotels.
It's important to get local residents into Waikiki so they can enjoy it, Waikiki Improvement Association President Rick Egged said.
"And it also is important because visitors really appreciate the fact that they are involved in things that attract local residents, that they are part of a local community and not just a sterile destination designed for them alone," he said.
There will be 60 keiki hula dancers swaying their stuff, and strolling members of the Royal Hawaiian Band Glee Club singing kama'aina melodies, as well as the hottest local music groups, says Ben Lee, the city's managing director.
It is, strictly speaking, brunch BY the beach, on the lanes of Kalakaua Avenue itself, at a point where the roadway opens up to the section of Waikiki called Kuhio Beach.
The roadway will be closed at about 7:30 a.m. on brunch Sundays to allow city crews to roll out artificial grass, set out palms and other plantings around the perimeter, and arrange 150 tables and 400 chairs in time for the 10:30 a.m. opening.
Kalakaua traffic will be detoured to Kuhio Avenue until the brunch ends at 1:30 p.m. and the roadway re-opens about 2:30 p.m., Lee said.
Major hotels and restaurants will set up food booths for sit-down diners and customers who prefer a spot on the grass or beach.
Scrip will be sold, a la the Taste of Honolulu food fest, for a taste of Waikiki, he said.
Parking will be available at the Zoo or at Kapi'olani Park, with the new JTB Open Air Shuttle shuttling, and major hotels in the area will be asked to open up parking with validation discounts if necessary, city spokeswoman Carol Costa said.
"It's a time when parking is available," Costa said, "We were able to accommodate thousands who came to the celebration of our $11 million Kuhio Beach renovation in August."
Waikiki Development Director Peter Apo said the brunch "is part of a much grander strategy to appeal to local people, to bring local people in contact with visitors, to create some value and some reasons for local people to come to Waikiki.
"This is Hawai'i Calls revisited, the linchpin event among many including hula seven nights a week at the Banyan Tree and shows regularly at Kapi'olani Bandstand," he said.
Sam Bren, a member of the Waikiki Neighborhood Board, welcomed the event as another way "to celebrate the fact that Waikiki is practically reborn, to cater to tourists but as much as possible let the taxpayers enjoy it too."
Bren, who also serves on the Business Improvement District and Waikiki Improvement Association boards, said merchants love such events as generators of foot traffic.
"My gut feeling is that the man in the street is going to say, 'Gee, why didn't they think of this sooner?'"
Someone did think of it sooner, Lee said. It was the late George Kanahele, longtime cultural consultant, who advocated precisely such events a decade ago.
"As one of the world's premier hospitality places," Kanahele wrote, "Waikiki needs to be much more aloha. Bringing people together in closer social contact is one way to do this."
