Cathy Aoki was 6 years old when her family opened Aoki’s Shave Ice in 1981 in Haleiwa, just a few hundred feet from world-famous Matsumoto Shave Ice.
Years later she missed her college graduation ceremony because she was busy working as the newly appointed owner of the shop.
Now she waits to find out when it will be demolished.
"We have so many ties to this location because next door used to be my grandparents’ house, and then my grandmother had a sewing school here before the shave ice," Aoki said in an interview at the shop last week. "I have customers who are now older, with their kids and grandkids, who remember me and remember my brother and sister and my dad and my grandparents."
The Aoki building will be torn down as part of landowner Kamehameha Schools’ North Shore development initiative. Matsumoto’s is spared by the plan.
Aoki said Kamehameha Schools offered her space in one of three new buildings going up at the site, but she declined.
"I don’t feel like we could create our same mom-and-pop shop atmosphere," she said.
Instead, the family opened Aoki’s North Shore Trading Co. in April, across from Matsumoto’s, on land it has owned for six years. Shave ice might be in the works for the new store, but Aoki said it will take a while to obtain the proper city permits.
Aoki said it made more sense to put the family’s energy toward that endeavor than to wait more than a year to reopen in a new building.
"We already have our system going," she said. "And to stop for 18 months and to restart and stuff — maybe franchises, things like that can do it … but for little guys like us … I got little things like this I deal with (she motioned to trinkets and souvenirs that fill the shop), not huge projects like that (redevelopment plan)."
The City Council gave final approval Wednesday to Kamehameha Schools’ $12.6 million plan to redevelop a 4-acre area. It would involve tearing down four buildings, including those that house Aoki’s Shave Ice and ‘Iwa Gallery, and erecting three new buildings. Some buildings, including the one with Matsumoto Shave Ice, would remain.
Aoki’s has operated in the shadow of Matsumoto’s since it opened, but that hasn’t stopped many residents and tourists from favoring the joint for generations.
Visitors from Tucson, Ariz., last week said they eat shave ice at Aoki’s each time they’re here.
Amber Alejandro, a student at Waialua High School, said she was disappointed when she heard Aoki’s would be closing.
"This is a really good place to eat shave ice," the 16-year-old said. "Hawaii’s where it’s at when it comes to shave ice, and, like, North Shore is one of the best places to get it because we’re close to the beaches and stuff."
Laila Onza, another local who said she goes to Aoki’s every once in a while, brought her 11-year-old daughter there because the two were out "playing tourist" for the day.
"People come here to see all the old buildings and stuff," Onza said. "I guess it’s sad because they’ve been here for a while, right? And they’re finally going to close after all these years."
Aoki said she finds it poignant that the concession stand her great-grandparents began running in the 1930s in the Old Haleiwa Theater, which also sold shave ice, was demolished in the ’80s to make way for a McDonald’s — and now the family shop that was opened afterward is being razed.
"At what point do they need to be taking down those ‘Historic Haleiwa’ signs? When the whole town is practically brand new?" she said. "We have customers now asking us, ‘What’s historic about Haleiwa?’"
The shop does not yet have a closing date because Aoki hasn’t received final word from Kamehameha Schools regarding when construction on its project will begin.
For now she plans to be out by February.
Aoki’s North Shore Trading Co. is the ninth business to be owned by Aoki’s family, including both her mother and father’s sides.
"It’s kind of in our blood to have business here, and I want to keep it going," she said. "That’s one thing that’s kind of stuck in me, is that … even if we didn’t have (the new store), I’d probably be figuring out something somewhere around here."
When word started spreading around the community that Aoki’s would be torn down, Aoki took to Facebook to ask the shop’s more than 2,000 fans to send their old pictures of Aoki’s.
"I always wonder throughout the years (about) all these people who have accumulated these probably fantastic pictures with my grandparents and stuff like that," she said. "It’s out there and it’s just reaching them."
