Tradition thrives at Helena's

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

Helen Chock, founder of Helena's Hawaiian Food, misses driving her car and cooking in the kitchen, but is happy she's still able to work at age 84.

Eighty-four-year-old Helen Chock, right, founder of Helena's Hawaiian Food, talks with her customer and sister, Jane Hu, at the restaurant's new location on North School Street. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

In February 2001, Helena's Hawaiian Food shut down its 56-year-old business when its lease ran out at its hole-in-the-wall location at 2364 N. King St. The diner was noted for its kalua pig, pork lau-lau, short-rib pipikaula and other ethnic Hawaiian foods, which Chock learned to prepare while growing up with Hawaiian families as neighbors.

With Katsuyoshi's help, Chock began looking for a new location two months before the closing and for three months afterward. They found what they were looking for at 1240 N. School St., a short distance ewa of Mitsuba Delicatessen, last May. The business reopened in July. Like the old location, the new Helena's is open Tuesday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

"I was thinking in my heart that we were going to come back," said Chock, who was hospitalized for a week after the closing due to exhaustion. "We went looking all over, at Ward Centre and in McCully. But we really wanted to stay in Kalihi."

Katsuyoshi found the new site and showed it to his grandmother. "It was perfect, and the price was right for us," said Chock, who signed a five-year lease with landlord Ronald Wong. "Most of the old customers are back, and we have more family coming in now than we used to."

There are twice as many tables and chairs available and the kitchen is bigger. "I feel relieved, because I know now that he can take over the business," Chock said of her grandson.

Chock is not yet considering retirement, however.

"I want to work for as long as I can," she said. "I like working. It keeps me alert and active. I don't like staying at home, because you get lazy when you can do things whenever you want to.

"I thought I would be a loser long time ago," Chock said of her poor health. "I had a cancer operation, kidney stone operation and a gall bladder operation. I'm OK now and I hope I don't have any more. When I'm working, I forget all about illnesses."

Katsuyoshi keeps her out of the kitchen, mostly so he can do his own thing — but also to get her to slow down.

"I help only if he asks me," said Chock, who did all the cooking at the old place. "The stoves here are not made for me. I can't reach anything.

"The customers like what he cooks," she added. "They tell me his squid luau is better than mine, and I think so, too."

Among the popular new items on the menu is Katsuyoshi's fried or boiled butterfish collars. "He makes it the way he likes to eat it, and that's good," Chock said.

The working relationship between Chock and Katsuyoshi, a graduate of Iolani School and University of Southern California who worked for his grandmother from 1990 to 1997 before taking a break, was not always pleasant.

"I'm old-fashion, and he had young ideas," she said of her grandson, whose mother is the eldest of Chock's three children. "Now I want him to take over the business in the future."

Working the register isn't so bad, Chock said. It lets her talk story with her customers, which she couldn't do from the kitchen.

"Some customers tell me their grandfathers brought them (to Helena's), or that they're happy we're back," she said. "I like talking story with them, especially the new customers."

Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.