Tamura Enterprises Inc. is making further strides in the restaurant industry with plans to open two operations at Waterfront Plaza, formerly known as Restaurant Row.
President Glenn Tamura also is planning to build a new store near the Wailuku Post Office and more restaurants on Maui, including in a retail center he will develop.
More immediately, the company will reopen The Row Bar at Waterfront Plaza, calling it The Row Bar by Tamura’s, and will take over the former Aka Kitchen and Kissaten space, also in the complex, under the name Tamura’s Tavern.
The Row Bar closed earlier this year, and its reopening is planned for late July or early August, Tamura said.
While the opening date for Tamura’s Tavern is not yet set, Tamura plans to have the kitchen up and running in time to provide food service for the bar, mere steps away.
The bar will offer a different selection of brews on tap each month, along with typical bottled beer selections. Early hours during football season will offer communal viewing experiences.
The Tavern will provide a base in Kakaako for Tamura’s catering operations, and its kitchen will provide dishes for special events at the Row Bar, including cigar or Champagne dinners.
Tamura also is building a $1 million commissary in Wahiawa to produce food for the chain’s retail stores and to provide catering on the west side of Oahu.
Tamura’s first restaurant, The Edge, opened in December on Waialae Avenue, but he sought different branding for the Kakaako restaurant “because The Edge is more upscale tapas. Over here it’ll be more like bar food, tavern food: sliders, high-end gourmet burgers, ribs. Aaron (Siguenza, his corporate chef) wants to do smoked stuff,” though he said the exact restaurant concept is still being formulated.
Compared with The Row Bar, Tamura’s Tavern “will be more like a restaurant setting, where we’ll have the higher-end single malts (scotch), kind of like The Edge. We’ll have a little better wines, and we’ll do some mixology stuff.”
Tamura’s Tavern initially will be open for lunch, serving items common to Tamura’s supermarkets, such as poke bowls, pipi kaula and some hot foods.
“Eventually, I want to open for breakfast, serving good espresso and maybe small breakfast bentos.” Dinner service will follow as the operation builds staff. The company is accepting employment applications via the tamurasfinewine.com website.
Tamura has been building his culinary team for years. “I have a lot of friends in the restaurant business, and that’s what made me want to get into the restaurant business,” he said.
Nevertheless, as a fourth-generation supermarket industry player who made his own mark as a fine-wine and spirits retailer, “I didn’t want to learn a whole other industry, so I needed to bring in someone I could trust, like Aaron.”
His new team includes Siguenza and Jessie Ibanez, director of operations, who will oversee the restaurant division of the growing company. Ibanez has an extensive history in hotel and fine-dining food and beverage operations, primarily on Maui, where he is based.
Under Glenn Tamura, Tamura’s Fine Wine &Liquors has grown from its first, 3,500-square-foot space in Kakaako (where Caesars Cleaners is now) to six stores on Oahu and Maui. Tamura Enterprises employs more than 300 people in its wine and spirits, supermarket, catering and now restaurant divisions.
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