Nearly every dining table was full at Big City Diner in Kaimuki on Friday, the restaurant’s last day at the location after 26 years in business.

Owner Lane Muraoka said it had been that way since news that the restaurant at 3565 Waialae Ave. was closing its doors for good got out a few weeks ago.

“Everybody says that when a small business is closing, it’s just really busy,” he said. “If we were busy like this all the time, we could stay open. It’s just a matter of some days before the announcement, we were super busy, and some days we were super slow.”

Muraoka, however, already has made up his mind.

He said he’d made the difficult decision to close the 3,000-square-foot restaurant due to the increasingly high cost of doing business, compounded by the challenges of hiring staff for the Waialae Avenue eatery.

“Since the pandemic it’s been extremely challenging,” Muraoka told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “The cost of doing business in Hawaii has always been highest in the nation, but it’s gotten worse over the years, with the increase in minimum wage, increase in insurance, increase of electricity, gas, food. … The list goes on and on.”

Additionally, he said the Kaimuki location had been shorthanded and was unable to stay open every day.

The Kaimuki restaurant was Big City Diner’s first location, before it expanded to other sites.

Muraoka, who got his start in the industry as a dishwasher, remembers opening the first Big City Diner in August 1998.

His strategy then, he said, was to look for available restaurant spaces and then to create a concept.

His vision was to create a local diner with a full bar, TV screens featuring sports and news events, a checkerboard floor and a menu of eclectic, local American comfort food made from scratch.

“I wanted a menu where you could have three generations at one table and each have something they like to eat,” he said.

Today the menu still features local favorites like the three-egg omelet, macadamia nut pancakes with haupia creme sauce, fresh island fish and eggs, loco moco and kimchi fried rice.

Muraoka said he was always health-conscious because of his mother and that he offered egg white omelets and green tea early on, before they became trendy.

He loves the neighborhood of Kaimuki because it truly is a local neighborhood featuring small businesses — locally owned restaurants, a crack seed shop and a local coffee shop — and not the corporate chains or big-box stores that have taken over other parts of the island.

Over the past few weeks, he had been saying farewell to customers, some of whom had been dining regularly at the restaurant since its first days.

Vern Isono of Honolulu was one of them.

Isono had been a regular at Big City Diner in Kaimuki since Day One, he said, and was there Friday to get one more lunch with his daughter. He said he will miss the people, most of all, and the good food.

“I’ll be bummed out,” he said. “I’m sad already.”

Mike Sato of Kaimuki, who met with a group of friends at the location one last time Friday, said it was a comfortable and welcoming sports bar.

“It’s a great neighborhood, but there’s going to be a big hole here,” he said.

There are generations of customers who had dined at the restaurant, according to Muraoka — and he saw customers who were kids, who then grew up and had their own kids return to Big City Diner for meals.

“It’s sad because there are so many great memories,” he said. “So many relationships that were started here, and (so many) prospered over 25 years.”

Big City Diner at Kaimuki joins a list of other restaurants that recently closed permanently, including Buca di Beppo at Ward Village and three remaining Outback Steakhouses.

According to a survey by the U.S. Census Bureau measuring the effects of COVID-19, only about 22% of retailers returned to a normal level of operations in 2022, and only about 17% expected to in 2023 or later.

More than 15%, however, did not expect to ever return to a normal level of operations.

The Kaimuki neighborhood is an interesting tableau of struggling, longtime businesses mixed with recent newcomers that might or might not last more than a few years.

There are still vacant storefronts along Waialae Avenue left behind by businesses that departed during the early years of the pandemic — or even before it started.

Otto Cake, which sold handmade cheesecakes, was the most recent business to close up shop on 12th Avenue.

Recent newcomers to Kaimuki include Red Pineapple, which is in the former Gecko Books and Comics space, and Banan, which just opened about a year ago on Koko Head Avenue.

“It’s a really hard time right now,” said Kennedy Kramlick, the second-­generation owner of Sugarcane, a small gift shop offering locally made items. “It’s a scary time to own a business, for sure.”

Big City Diner had been a longtime landmark in Kaimuki, she said, and a place her mother would go for her business meetings when she ran the shop. Her favorite omelet, ever, is from Big City Diner, she said.

She understands many people are watching their dollars due to the increased costs of living, but hopes they will continue to support small businesses — and said even spending $20 at a local shop would make a difference.

Muraoka, who loves Kaimuki’s history, is selling the framed, historic photos on the walls of the restaurant, along with equipment and supplies. He said customers could just come in and make an offer.

Several dozen part-time employees will either depart, retire or transfer to other Big City Diner locations, he said.

Muraoka’s four other Big City Diner locations — at Pearlridge Center, Waipio Shopping Center, Windward Mall and Kailua Town Center — will remain open.