Like Like tables still crowded after 50 years
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Half a century later, the food's still the same at Like Like Drive Inn.
The neon sign in front of Like Like Drive Inn on Ke'eaumoku Street has not changed since the restaurant's launch as a carhop-style eatery 50 years ago.
Same "fruit cup" straight out of the can. Same thick helping of hamburger steak. Same stack of three pancakes served 24 hours a day.
Even the outdoor neon sign remains exactly as it was when James and Alice Nako put it up 50 years ago, in May 1953 — although the separate Coca Cola sign has been changed a couple of times for various reasons.
Like Like Drive Inn's ownership has since passed to James' and Alice's daughter, Dora Hayashi, and her husband, Roy. They renovated the place in 1994 with a $6.5 million upgrade that flip-flopped the restaurant with the small strip of businesses they lease to companies that include a florist, Japanese video store and Chinese restaurant.
Now Dora and Roy, who are 70 and 69 respectively, are talking about turning the business over some day to their oldest and youngest daughters, Karen Akiyoshi and Julie Tateyama, whose husbands also work at Like Like Drive Inn. But for now, the family is focused on celebrating the restaurant's golden anniversary Thursday through Sunday, after postponing it because of the Iraq war and threats of global terrorism.
"It just didn't seem right," Dora said.
While other family-run restaurants have gone under because no one wanted to continue the hard work, Like Like Drive Inn has hummed along, generating $2.5 million in annual sales over the past decade. The combined Sam's Club and Wal-Mart store going up directly across from the restaurant on the 'ewa side of Ke'eaumoku Street holds the promise of even more business.
"Almost all of the old, local restaurants are closing," Dora said. "We have good customer support."
The 6,786-square-foot restaurant and its 190 seats remain filled every day with a faithful, mostly local clientele, some of whom first went there as kids and now bring in their children.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Janice Goo, 66, and her husband, Joe Miyamoto, 82, make the daily drive from Kane'ohe for brunch, stay in town, and then return to Like Like Drive Inn for an early supper. It has been that way for 20 years. Two Like Like Drive Inn meals a day. Every day. Seven days a week.
Karen Akiyoshi, left, and her mother, Dora Hayashi, center, chat with longtime customers Joe Miyamoto and Janice Goo. The Kane'ohe couple have eaten brunch and supper at the restaurant just about every day for 20 years.
They even call the restaurant when they go on vacation, so nobody worries when they don't show up.
"We're treated like family here," Goo said.
Miyamoto always orders the same brunch: boiled Vienna sausages, scrambled eggs and rice. Goo usually mixes it up, as long as she gets her boiled egg.
After all those brunches all those years, however, Goo did have one complaint for Dora the other day.
"My three-minute egg comes out different every day," Goo said, laughing. "It does, Dora."
James Nako named the restaurant Like Like because he was convinced that the phrase meant "small gathering place."
"It doesn't," Dora said. "It's just Princess Likelike's name." (The Hawaiian Dictionary by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert also describes the phrase as meaning "alike.")
But the name stuck, and Like Like Drive Inn opened as a carhop-style eatery. An original menu features a hula dancer on the cover holding a plate of food in front of a backdrop of round-fendered cars parked outside the restaurant.
Back then, a hamburger steak with onions and choice of rice, mashed potatoes or french fries went for $1.75. It's now $7.25. A stack of hotcakes cost 85 cents then, versus $4.95 today.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
James Nako wanted his restaurant to stay open around the clock. He insisted that customers got confused by others that had different hours on different days. Soon, Like Like Drive Inn became a well-known after-hours hangout for Hawai'i entertainers.
Like Like Drive Inn owners Roy and Dora Hayashi, left and center, are considering handing over the operation to daughters Karen Akiyoshi, right, and Julie Tateyama, who is not pictured.
The car-hop phase had died by 1967 when James called his daughter and son-in-law in Los Angeles and asked them to come back home and help run the restaurant. Dora's two brothers and a sister were doing missionary work in Japan, she said.
"There was no one to take over," Dora said.
The old restaurant was dark and showing signs of wear. And people were crammed into the 188 seats.
But Roy, who was trained as a mechanic, took to running the restaurant under his father-in-law.
James died in 1972 at the age of 69. Alice died in 1994.
Now Dora and Roy's daughters, Karen and Julie, run the office. Karen's husband, David, serves as the night manager. Julie's husband, Kenny, is the head chef.
Dora now only works one day a week and is thinking of retiring. But Roy, who kept getting up and walking throughout the restaurant during a recent interview, still shows up seven days a week to run the place and its 86 employees.
"He still gets his hands dirty," Karen said. "He'll jump in and do the dishwashing if they need help."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.
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• 735 Ke'eaumoku Street, between Kapi'olani Boulevard and King Street • Open 24 hours, seven days a week • 941-2515
Like Like Drive Inn restaurant
