Pono Market

There was a time when this stretch of Kūhiō Highway was lined with small family-run markets, each one named after the family that owned it. The Yasudas had a store. So did the Nakamuras, the Kuramotos, the Yonejis, and the Kojimas. Each had its niche. Kojima Store, just up the road, was known for hamburger and stew meat, with butcher George Kojima behind the counter and famous teriyaki ribs that customers added to their order on the way out.

Most of these mom and pop shops were started by first and second-generation Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino immigrants who had left the sugar plantations to build something of their own. The stores were more than places to buy food. They were where families caught up on news, where kūpuna (elders) sat outside in the afternoon, and where children stopped after school for a treat on their way home.

The Kubota family were originally pig farmers on Kauaʻi. In 1968, Minoru and Kyoko Kubota opened Pono Market as a meat shop selling their own Kubota pork. By the 1970s, they had added grocery shelves, vegetables, and beer. In the 1980s, they shifted toward fresh fish. When their son Bob and his wife Lynn took over in 1997, they brought plate lunches into the rotation. Each generation has shaped the store, and the soul of it has stayed the same.