A popular Korean barbecue restaurant is expanding to Kaneohe.
If the reaction of the younger of your columnist’s twin sons is any indication, many people are gasping when they see the Sik Do Rak II banner at Kaneohe Times Center at 45-934 Kamehameha Highway, because they are familiar with the original.
Just as with the first location at 655 Keeaumoku St. in town, Sik Do Rak II will operate on an all-you-can-eat (in 90 minutes) basis and will be open “24 hours,” said owner Patrick Choi.
Diners at the Korean-style yakiniku restaurant choose and grill their own meats, while the staff serves side dishes of prepared vegetables and other items.
“Now we’re starting to hire” for full- and part-time positions, he said, perhaps as many as 30 employees to staff the restaurant, the name of which often is presented as all one word, as in the restaurant’s signage.
It means to “make all the food and enjoy” in Korean, said Choi with a chuckle. It literally means epicurism, at the risk of using the word “literally” to mean what it actually means, instead of the way it is over- and misused and abused nowadays.
There is no bar or alcohol service, but Sik Do Rak encourages customers to bring their own, as will its new sister-restaurant.
Prices also will be the same in Kaneohe as they are in town, and Kaneohe diners will be able to enjoy the restaurant’s most popular lunch specials, such as stone-pot bibimbap, Choi said.
Seating capacity in the 2,500-square-foot restaurant will be about 96, and Choi hopes to open in the middle of December.
No reservations are taken, so the wait to get into the Honolulu restaurant can be long or short, depending on the time of day, according to reviews posted at Yelp.com.
Sik Do Rak II will fill the long-vacant space left several years ago by locally based Pet’s Discount, said Nick Paulic, principal of Commercial Consultants Inc. CCI handles leasing at the center, as well as other shopping centers, including some on the four major islands.
Tenancy in the center had been a bit spotty in some of its spaces for years, with businesses including PC Gamerz staying for a relatively short time. GBC Boxes and Packaging also had closed before CCI came aboard for leasing, Paulic said.
A new CrossFit K Block facility now is in the old PC Gamerz space, and Tea Home, “a bubble tea concept, is going to take a portion of GBC, and next to them will be a laundromat,” Paulic said.
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On the Net:
>> 808ne.ws/SikDoRakYelp
>> cci-hawaii.com
>> crossfitkblock.com
Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com, or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
