Authentic Japanese Food
located on the Island of Kauai, tucked away in the small town of Hanapepe, Hawaii.

Why Hanapepe?

“I get asked this question often! I fell in love with the building first. This building housed the USO during WWll, the thought of people enjoying themselves during the darkest of times inspired me to choose this building to restore. But it’s the community that has become my true love.”

Hanapepe is a historic town that was originally built by entrepreneurial immigrants from the 1880’s to the early 1900’s. This town is one of the few towns on the island that was not created by the sugarcane plantations. The town is known for taro, rice, and small farms. Hanapepe Valley is a fertile area, where many foods such as banana, sugar cane, and sweet potato were grown. Besides growing kalo, from which “poi” is made, Hawaiians developed salt which was cultivated in saltwater ponds to trade with sailors. Salt trading was the earliest entrepreneurial legacy of Hanapepe. The right to harvest salt, handed down through families, continues today.