PA'IA, Maui – Nagata Store, a family business that grew up with Maui's sugar cane fields and plantation camps, will close its doors after more than 70 years, The Maui News reported.

The family-owners of the Pa'ia grocery store cited rising costs, aging equipment and their mother's wish to retire as reasons for the closure. The final day of business is June 30.

"For us it's a bittersweet ending," said Cindy (Nagata) Hanscam, who runs the store, with her younger sister, Tina (Nagata) Bunch.

While closing the store is sad, Hanscam said, they are closing on a positive note. It means their 66-year-old mother, Chieko, can retire and spend time with her grandchildren.

Chieko Nagata also will continue her work as president of Chado Urasenke Maui Association — one of the main schools of Japanese tea ceremony — and will remain active with the Kahului Union Church. She had mixed feelings herself.

"I'm sad," Chieko Nagata said. But then, "now I can relax."

Customers also are sad.

"It's one of the last landmarks in Pa'ia town," said 70-year-old Richard Amadeo of Pa'ia. "Breaks my heart," he said, adding that he has known Hanscam and Bunch since they were little.

"Now I got to find someplace to get my apple turnover and my small coffee and my cigarettes."

Lee Keating, a part-time Maui resident from Aspen, Colo., was shocked to learn of the closure.

"No. Why?" she asked the family with her eyes and mouth wide open. "This is really sad. ... Where am I going to get poke?"

Besides the poke and a secret special sauce — a recipe passed on from another Pa'ia fish market — customers will miss the Spam musubis, Miyako sushi, Home Maid Bakery pastries as well as the snacks and the convenience of groceries in Pa'ia town.

The family has ordered lots of Nagata Store T-shirts for nostalgic customers wanting to have a memento.

Store clerk Mickey Kealoha was downcast as well, although she understood the reasons. She said the Nagatas gave her a job when she needed one and even though she's worked there only a few years, they have treated her like family.

The business began in 1927 as Nagata and Sons, when Fred Hitoshi Nagata and his brothers began a business selling groceries in the camps. The family also had a retail location along Baldwin Avenue.

It became the original Nagata Store in 1935 when Fred and Kiyome Nagata left plantation field work behind. The couple started their store in the rustic wood-frame structure along Hana Highway where it has been ever since. Photos of the late Fred Hitoshi Nagata and Kiyome Nagata, the grandparents of Hanscam and Bunch, still hang in the back of the store.

Chieko Nagata and her husband, Fujito Len Nagata, took over store operations from his parents. Fujito Nagata died in 1991.

Hanscam and Bunch's brother, Mark, also ran the store into the late 1990s, until Bunch returned from college to help. Hanscam left a banking career in Oahu to join her sister on Maui, while Mark Nagata has since become a microbiologist.

Although Bunch said the closure "was a sudden decision," she said every year the family had evaluated the business situation to decide if they should continue. Prices for the merchandise they carry have gone up, and equipment in the store needs to be repaired or replaced.

"Everything costs money. It's kind of expensive," she said. "It's not that we didn't want to keep going."

Hanscam said if the family decided to upgrade the store and equipment, it would be like "starting all over again"

At the same time, the dynamics of Pa'ia town and the needs of its residents have changed. Pa'ia residents don't need a grocery store when they can venture to Kahului to buy their groceries and supplies.

"Pa'ia has become a tourist destination, and locals go to Costco and to Wal-Mart," Hanscam said.

But Hanscam and Bunch said they will miss the longtime customers, old-timers who come in every day for a coffee, a pastry or fresh fish. As much as 70 percent of Nagata's business is local customers who find that Nagata Store fills a niche and who have kept them afloat, Hanscam said.

But she said one factor may be the loss of visitors who used to stay at the unpermitted vacation rentals scattered around the Ha'iku and Pa'ia region.

Over the past several months, Hanscam said, sales have been down on the kinds of products used by the vacation rental customers.

Many vacation rentals in the East Maui region have shut down since the Maui County Planning Department and Mayor Charmaine Tavares last year began to take enforcement actions against unpermitted vacation rentals, warning operators they would be cited if they did not have the appropriate permits.

"We understand what Tavares is doing. ... We think it has to be regulated," Hanscam said.

Hanscam, who has been vocal about decisions and issues in Pa'ia town, will continue on with her other job as a nurse at Maui Memorial Medical Center.

Bunch, who has a degree in social work, said she will have to look for another job.

The fish cutter for the market, Bunch said she can cut fish. But probably it's not what she would want to do for the rest of her life.

Bunch expressed her appreciation for all of her family who have regularly stepped up to help at the store, including mother-in-law Deborah Goodwin, husband Jack Bunch and Cindy's husband, Shawn Hanscam.

While it will no longer be the Nagata Store, the family expects that the building will remain in business. They said they already have prospective tenants.

But before it's completely gone, they will be clearing the inventory with special close-out prices.

And they are inviting friends, customers and the Maui community for a farewell party at the store all day June 30. It's a way to say thank you to all of their customers.

For more Maui news, visit www.mauinews.com.