The oldest son of Benihana founder Rocky Aoki has taken his decades of experience and opened a second Hawaii Doraku restaurant at Honolulu Pacifica.
"Kakaako is the place I wanted to open my second restaurant in," Aoki said.
Aoki left the Benihana chain of more than 120 restaurants after his father’s death four years ago.
Now his focus is Doraku, a Japanese-sushi restaurant with locations in Miami, Kuala Lumpur, and two more set to open, one on the mainland and the other in Vietnam.
"Everyone wants to eat well. I think that’s kind of the trend in the future," Aoki said.
Right next door to the Kapiolani Boulevard Doraku location, Aoki also opened Blue Tree Cafe which is a health-focused, organic coffee-smoothie shop. Between the two, there are 80 workers.
"When my grandfather opened the first Benihana restaurant in 1942, it was a coffee shop and ever since my father was telling me about this coffee shop as he was a child. So, I decided I want to try a coffee shop on my own," Aoki said.
And one more door down is Chef Chai’s new restaurant, which is currently offering a catering menu with the dining room set to open early next month.
And on the corner of Ward Avenue and Kapiolani Boulevard, a new raw, vegan restaurant is drawing customers away from your typical restaurant experience.
"I don’t think that there’s a lot of restaurants like this in Kakaako yet," Doraku waitress Lisa Mastrantonia said.
Making Kakaako a place aimed at hosting locals in an area where they work, live, and play.
"Obviously, it’s a great place and we have a lot of locals that come here versus tourists that are more geared toward our Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center location," Mastrantonia said.
See the original article at: KHON2 Developing Stories
