Wendy’s Kailua will hold a grand opening Saturday for its first Windward Oahu location and 11th in the state.

The 2,918-square-foot restaurant, which has 47 indoor seats, is at 1143 Kailua Road on what used to be the site of a Tesoro gas station. It will open at 9 a.m. Saturday, with Kahu Kordell Kekoa performing a Hawaiian blessing 15 minutes earlier. Wendy’s will give out a free small frosty with any purchase on Saturday and Sunday.

Franchise owner Cotti Foods said Monday it plans to donate $10,000 today to nearby Kailua High School, whose students likely will frequent the restaurant once school resumes in the fall.

Despite what could be a popular eating hangout, well over 100 residents of the surrounding Pohakupu neighborhood likely won’t patronize the fast-food restaurant, said 48-year-old Ben Rowe, who has lived there for 22 years and was a neighborhood newspaper carrier before that.

The neighbors’ main beef since April 2018 about the site is that they want a wall to separate the commercial area from residences, for the safety of the community.

“They’re trying to attract high school students,” Rowe said.

Cotti Foods tore down the 6-foot lava-rock wall in 2020 that Tesoro had up for decades.

“It gave us nice peace and security, and that’s been taken away from us,” Rowe said. “It allows people to wander into our neighborhood. Now we’re wide open. It allows patrons to park on our street and it’s turning our neighborhood into a commercial area.”

Kailua Neighborhood Board Chairman Bill Hicks said he is hopeful the company will follow through and build the solid wall that a representative had only three weeks ago agreed on putting up once the city’s Department of Planning and Permitting approves plans. But no exact details of the wall were shared, Hicks said.

Hicks said he is hopeful the company will build a 6-foot-high continuous, solid wall, though that has not been promised. Residents remain skeptical.

“We are currently working with the City on obtaining the necessary approvals for the wall along the Uluopihi Loop boarder of the property,” Ryan Zacche, chief development officer for Cotti Foods, said in a written statement.

For years, the gas station and Koolau Farmers, both on Kailua Road, the main thoroughfare into Kailua town, were walled or fenced off from the neighborhood.

Hicks said in December 2019 that California-based Cotti Foods sent a letter that it was going to take down the rock wall and replace it with a 4- to 5-foot hedge and pedestrian walkway access.

“I heard loud and clear from the residents, that that was an inadequate substitution and (Cotti) should keep the existing wall in place,” Hicks said.

Hicks said the pedestrian walkway would increase foot traffic, people would park in the neighborhood to get to Wendy’s, and “any negative activity at the commercial site could spill over into the neighborhood.”

He said the restaurant will increase pedestrian and vehicular traffic, create a trespassing and crime potential, and produce light and noise pollution in an otherwise peaceful, quiet neighborhood.

Hicks said the fast-food restaurant could legally operate 24/7, but the restaurant intends to close late in the evening and open in the morning.

Currently, a fence covered with black construction material temporarily stands at the site.

Rowe said many of his neighbors are seniors and have pushed him to represent them.

The company has not spoken with the residents directly except for one early meeting, Rowe said.

Lights from Wendy’s shine on five houses, Rowe said.

“At night, it’s so well lit up that the menu shines in my garage,” he said. “The neighbor’s bedroom window is directly across from the drive-thru speaker.”