The Asato family, owners of the restaurant, put the property and building on the market in May for $3.25 million.

KC Drive Inn spent 23 years at the top of Kapahulu Avenue and 47 years on the corner of Ala Wai Boulevard and Kalakaua Avenue, a location that gave the restaurant its reputation for being a late-night hot spot.

It was such a popular date destination, patrons joked that KC stood for "kissing corner."

So far no one has placed an offer for the property, the family said.

The decision to sell came after years of dwindling profits because of increasing costs and added competition.

"We're not hurting," said current president Dayton Asato, "but we're not flourishing."

The dozens of eateries along Kapahulu Avenue and throughout Kaimuki have hurt KC Drive Inn's profits, but the decision to close was still difficult for the Asato family.

"It was our legacy," said former president and part-owner James Asato, who still works at the restaurant parttime. "We've been in business for so long. We went through our ups and downs ... I would've been glad to see another generation continue it before I died, but I guess it wasn't so."

The five siblings of owner Jiro KC Asato took over the business when he died in 1960. All five children have equal ownership of the restaurant. A "majority rules" decision last year resulted in the agreement to sell the property and divide the proceeds.

Dayton Asato, son of James Asato, wants to carry on the tradition of its signature waffle hot dogs and ono ono shakes. But he realizes to survive in today's restaurant market, things will have to change.

"It would be nice to keep it going," he said, "but I'm not sure. Everything's gotta be right."

The restaurant won't continue at its current 20,000-square-foot location. But Dayton Asato may find someplace smaller, more manageable. Maybe reduce it to take-out only. Maybe find a spot in a different neighborhood.

"The coffee-shop concept," he said, "is dead."

Ethel Kakimoto remembers going on dates with her then-boyfriend to KC Drive Inn, when it was a bustling car hop on the corner of Kalakaua Avenue and Ala Wai Boulevard.

"My (now) husband used to go all the time," said Kakimoto, who was then a teenager at Kaimuki High School. "He used to take all his girlfriends. Oh, he took me there a couple of times, too."

Now 70, she and her husband, Bobby, sip coffee and split breakfast at the restaurant five days a week. They talked story on a recent morning with a group of retirees — all regulars — who have turned the restaurant into a late-morning hangout.

"I see all the same customers all the time," she said, laughing. "They keep coming back."

KC Drive Inn has long been known for its local-style service and grinds. Golfers, surfers, corporate executives, high schoolers, retirees — they have all embraced the restaurant as a fixture in Hawai'i, a place to sit and relax over hamburger steak and fried noodles.

And then there are the Waikiki entertainers who used to head to the drive-in after their shows. KC Drive Inn and the Kau Kau Korner, where the Hard Rock Cafe stands, were the only two restaurants open past midnight then.

On the walls of the Kapahulu restaurant are these memories, from black-and-white photographs of the old car hop to autographed glossies of Hawai'i's celebrities and beauty queens.

"There was a lot of hustle and bustle then," said James Asato, who worked there as a teenager. "We didn't have to advertise."

More than 60 cars would pack into the parking lot, all waiting for their orders, he said. Waitresses would bring out the food on long wooden planks that were placed through the cars, window to window.

"The parking lot was our dining room," James Asato said.

During the '60s and '70s, KC Drive Inn was one of just a handful of restaurants in the area.

"It was busy, real busy," said Helen Asato, 71, part-owner and longtime waitress and cook at the restaurant. "Right after the war, that's when everything just boomed."

But times changed.

Car hops lost their charm and restaurants touting everything from plate lunches to bentos began sprouting up all over urban Honolulu.

The economic downturn of the '80s didn't help, either, James Asato added. People were less likely to spend money on sit-down meals, especially when cheaper, faster options abounded.

Then, in 1981, its lease on Kalakaua Avenue was up, and KC Drive Inn had to look for a new location. It didn't take long, though, for the owners to find the spot on Kapahulu Avenue. "We just so happened to luck out," James Asato said.

The new location was bigger, with more room for a dining area. (Car service didn't last long here.) And the menu had to change. The owners added saimin, salads, oxtail soup and tripe stew to their lineup of hamburgers and waffle dogs.

Now the restaurant serves about 1,000 patrons a day, down by more than half during its heyday. Profits are down, costs are up.

As much as the Asatos are associated with the restaurant, the family wasn't the original owners of KC Drive Inn.

Banker George C. Knapp and Realtor Elwood L. Christensen founded KC Drive Inn in 1929. Five years later, they sold the restaurant, considered the first drive-in in Hawai'i, to one of their cooks, Jiro Asato, for $100. He couldn't buy it outright, so he paid in $10 installments.

Jiro Asato kept the restaurant's name — even legally added "KC" as his middle name — and continued to serve the menu items that had made the restaurant popular. He ran the restaurant until he died.

Now, 70 years later, some of his children wonder if closing the restaurant is the right thing.

"It was a hard decision," said Helen Asato, who still has breakfast at the restaurant five days a week. "We've had it for so long already. I hate to give it up."