Kaka'ako restaurateur hangs up apron

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Tom Shizuru, the soul of Tom's Place, will wake up in the middle of the night for the last time to get ready for work today.

Tom Shizuru wraps one of the last takeout orders at his eatery, Tom's Place. The business closes today. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

There will be no more Tom's Place in Kaka'ako after today, which for the past 20 years has served a steady clientele that ranges from long-line fishermen to Circuit Court judges.

Shizuru, 64, sold the business to Rainbow Drive-In, which will reopen May 1 under the name Rainbow Express.

Tom's Place is going the way of dozens of other mom-and-pop plate lunch places, okazu-ya and lunch wagons statewide. They raised a generation of children, who in turn have no interest in working the hard hours and making the marginal money that their parents did.

"This kind of place can't survive without a succession plan," said Lisa Furuta, Shizuru's niece who worked at Tom's Place on her summer breaks from Iolani School. Now she's marketing director for Prudential Locations LLC.

"Basically, your whole family has to buy into the idea of getting up at midnight and working long hours with low margins," Furuta said. "It's a hard business. Very difficult."

Shizuru, who's typically soft-spoken, just shrugged at the end of another long day yesterday. His four sons all live in Las Vegas, working as a carpenter, casino dealer, baker and fine-dining waiter.

"I'm fine with that," Shizuru said. "I don't have any legacy to carry on. They picked their own road, and it's fine with me."

Shizuru may not have a legacy, but he created a following that attracted about 400 customers a day to the tiny storefront on Coral Street.

Tom's Place made its reputation by serving tasty food at low prices. Furuta put up the menu board eight years ago that advertises dozens of items, such as a fresh roast turkey sandwich for $3.25, and estimates that prices overall have gone up maybe 15 cents since then.

"That's probably why he's having a hard time," Furuta said.

It's also the kind of place where regulars squeeze themselves into the busy kitchen and help themselves to pie and doughnuts, or make a fresh pot of coffee and are trusted to pay when they leave. There's often a line out the door at lunch time for Shizuru's plate lunches, chicken pot pies and bread pudding and none of the usual customers expects anyone to wipe off a table for them.

The lunch crowd was larger than usual yesterday at Tom's Place in Kaka'ako. Its owner, Tom Shizuru, created a following that attracted about 400 customers a day to the tiny storefront on Coral Street. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

"It looks like chaos," Furuta said. "But they've got this silent system going. Rose puts in the rice and mac salad, Barbara adds the entree ..."

Shizuru was a defensive and offensive end who helped Waialua High School win consecutive O'ahu Interscholastic Association football titles from 1952-55. A team photo after the 1955 championship game with Tom and his brother Jimmy hangs next to the front door of Tom's Place.

Shizuru played defensive end at Emporia State in Kansas and planned to teach. But after one year with intermediate and high school students in Kansas, Shizuru decided he lacked the proper temperament.

"They got the best of me," he would only say.

He went to baking school in Minnesota, came back home and worked at Bakery Kapiolani before he took over his ex-wife's plate lunch shop in 1983. Almost immediately he introduced items not found in a typical plate lunch place shop, such as muffins and chicken pot pie based on Miss Kimura's recipe from the Waialua High cafeteria.

Matt McCall, a law clerk for Circuit Court Judge Gary Chang, came to eat at Tom's Place every day this week.

"I'm trying to get it out of my system before he closes," McCall said after ordering a barbecue chicken plate. "They have the best food in town."

Last year, McCall hired Tom's Place to cater his wedding.

Once in a while, McCall might be short on money and the people behind the counter would simply say, "pay us later," McCall said. "It's old-fashioned like that."

Shizuru did that kind of thing all of the time and every person came back to pay, he said. One, a surfer who said up front that he was hungry but had no cash, even returned after two years and paid double.

Charles Huxel, a retired hydrogeologist, ate at Tom's Place at least twice a week and like many other customers, said he plans to cry today when it closes. He dug into a heaping pile of chicken, stew, hamburger steak and rice yesterday and considered a dining life without his favorite food.

"I guess I'll lose weight," he said.

Tom's Place used to close for just one week each year so the seven employees could get a break. But last year, Shizuru decided to also open on Sundays, which essentially gave him little time to think of anything but work.

With some of the employees already working six days a week, Shizuru found himself facing customers by himself on Sundays.

Now at the age of retirement, he has diabetes and high blood pressure, and ironically, is allergic to flour. He's supposed to wear gloves but never does and is surrounded by flour from midnight until 4 p.m., when he finally cleans up the kitchen.

"It's hard on his body," Furuta said. "It's too much. Last year he tried to expand the business and it didn't work."

After the lunchtime rush ends this afternoon, Tom's Place will be no more. Shizuru has invited everyone to stay around in the parking lot, where he'll cook some more and serve pupus until whenever.

Then tomorrow, he'll return to clean up one last time.

Reach Dan Nakaso at 525-8085 or dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.