A restaurant named Lanai Cafe is about to open, not on Isla Ellison in the Hawaiian archipelago, but in the chic Gangnam district of Seoul, which was popularized by a global pop hit.
Lanai Cafe will serve Kona coffee Melitta style, or by pouring hot water over ground coffee, allowing it to filter into a vessel for serving.
Lanai Cafe publicity materials boast that Hawaiian Kona coffee is one of the world’s three top coffee beans.
"Hawaii is also famous for pancake," the cafe said in a statement, adding that Lanai Cafe will serve pancakes made following a secret Hawaiian recipe.
The online menu shows a variety of pancakes, including its "classic," honey-apple, cheese-banana, orange-pineapple, strawberry-blueberry and other, similar iterations.
"Sweet brunches" also are offered.
The allure of Hawaii is used all over the globe to attract customers, and lest you have doubts about that, just check out "The Search for Signs of Hawaiian Life" in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Travel section on any given Sunday. It’s always a picture of some far-flung place with an island-inspired name or other Hawaii connection.
Lanai Cafe’s parent company is Japanese-based Toridoll Ltd., which, in its announcement, observed that "it is never fair that Seoul has to wait for something Tokyo enjoyed many years ago."
There is at least one Lanai Cafe in Japan.
Toridoll established a Korea division for the Seoul Lanai Cafe and possibly other ventures, but it may already be familiar to Hawaii residents.
Toridoll USA Corp. is the entity that operates Oahu’s two Marukame Udon restaurants, one downtown and one in Waikiki.
The Gangnam-area Lanai Cafe will open Sunday, according to the news release.
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On the Net:
» lanaicafe.co.kr
Next stop, Kaneohe
A construction fence around it indicates that Zippy’s in Kailua is closed, but it’s not closed for good.
The main purpose of the renovation is to install new grease interceptors, said Jeanine Mamiya-Kalahiki, Zippy’s marketing manager.
That will involve digging, she said.
Since intensive work was to be done, company officials decided to "do some interior changes" as well, including moving the bakery toward the entrance and enhancing the drive-thru with an additional window "to speed up the lines," said Mamiya-Kalahiki.
The 60 to 70 Kailua employees were reassigned to the Kaneohe Zippy’s and other locations.
The company is encouraging would-be Kailua Zippy’s customers to head over to the 24-hour Kaneohe store that itself was razed and rebuilt, reopening in May 2001.
During that process, Zippy’s opened a temporary location on William Henry Road, also in Kaneohe, set back from Kamehameha Highway. The location stayed open long after the main Kaneohe Zippy’s reopened, as it had garnered a loyal following, officials said back then.
However, the second location, which Mamiya-Kalahiki said "was always intended to be a temporary location," closed in July.
"Business did not support having two locations" so close together.
The Kailua Zippy’s is scheduled to reopen this summer.
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On the Net:
» www.zippys.com/category/news
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
