The food scene is vibrant along Honolulu’s waterfront as POP Fishing & Marine is building a new restaurant above Nico’s at Pier 38 and Uncle’s Fish Market & Grill is expanding.

The Harbor at Pier 38 is under construction above Nico’s, a seafood restaurant that first opened in the area in 2004 and relocated to its current spot in 2012.

The restaurant to be opened by POP, a fishing gear and marine supplies retailer formerly known as Pacific Ocean Producers, will not compete against Nico’s, said Shane Kaneshiro, POP creative director.

“We’ll pay close attention to the menu selections … so we are not competing,” he said. The opening is planned for late May, though restaurant opening dates can be hard to predict far in advance, giving permitting, construction and inspection matters.

The upstairs space was formerly split into two event rooms that were not underutilized, but had “very limited growth potential,” Kaneshiro said.

Food service was offered for the event spaces, and POP shared “some kitchen resources” with Nico’s.

Now POP has built out its own kitchen centered around commercial-grade, enclosed charcoal- or wood-burning “brasa”-style ovens popular in Peruvian and other styles of cooking. Kaneshiro didn’t have clearance from the manufacturer to publicly name the brand being used.

The new restaurant will seat as many as 240 diners in its 10,000-square-foot space, and some 100 employees likely will be hired, Kaneshiro said. The company is not yet divulging the name of the chef already hired to lead the restaurant.

Advertising for POP Fishing & Marine has long included the tag line “Pier 38 next to Nico’s,” including the radio version read by a deep, commanding voice that Kaneshiro declined to identify except to say that he is a national voice-over announcer. It is too early for Kaneshiro to say how the tag line might change, given that POP soon will have its own restaurant across the way from its retail store.

The Harbor at Pier 38 will be meat-focused, whereas Nico’s specializes in seafood, as does the expanding Uncle’s Fish Market & Grill, but all are different types of restaurant concepts.

“We do different cooking and have different prices,” said Nicolas “Nico” Chaize, chef-owner of the eponymous restaurant that is a tenant of POP.

“We do open for breakfast, we have a fish market, so we do retail but we also do a restaurant,” he said. Lunch hour is a casual affair with plate lunch-style service and prices, and dinner is a bit more full service, with servers bringing food to customers’ tables.

“I’m not changing anything,” Chaize said.

Uncle’s Fish Market & Grill, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fresh Island Fish, opened in 2007 and is expanding its space by 900 square feet due to customer demand, said Tim Campbell, CEO of Fresh Island Fish.

The existing space offers seating for 95 customers, and “we’re out the door at lunch, and at dinner we’re out the door too,” he said, referring to lines of customers awaiting seats.

There will be 30 additional seats that also will accommodate private dining, and there will be restrooms, as well. Currently, restaurant patrons must trek out the door of either restaurant to a central, public restroom building.

Campbell said he hopes to have the addition open and ready for customers by July if not sooner. “We’re ahead of schedule on our construction, and we hope to stay that way,” he said.

The restaurants in the area are all different “and are all doing well, which is great,” Campbell said. The dining scene is “blossoming as people enjoy coming down here to be by the water, and enjoy certainly the freshest seafood you can get on Oahu,” being right by the daily fish auction.

The new restaurant and expansion of Uncle’s “is a good thing,” Chaize said. “It shows that Pier 38 is alive. It’s what we’ve worked for for the past 10 years, and now it’s finally happening.”