I’ve written about Wahiawa on several occasions this year. This time, I thought I’d write about one of its icons — Dot’s restaurant.

Dot’s story began 111 years ago when Shio Sakata came to Hawaii in 1907 as a picture bride to Yujiro Harada. She worked for two years for Hawaiian Pine.

“My mom, Shio, and sister, Marian, went into the restaurant business in 1935,” Dorothy “Dot” Harada told me when I met her 15 years ago. She was 82 at the time.

They named their venture the Sukiyaki Inn. It was a restaurant and bar on Kilani Avenue and Cane Street, Dot said. It offered comfortable surroundings, cold beer and good food, such as saimin, hamburgers and other Japanese and American dishes.

“In 1938, they opened a skating rink where Dot’s is now, a few blocks away on Mango Street and Kilani Avenue, called the Wahiawa Amusement Center,” recalls Dot’s nephew, Mel Sakaba. “Advertisements in the 1940 newspapers claim it was the ‘largest roller skating rink in rural Oahu.’

“It was an outdoor roller rink. It could hold 700 people, if you can imagine that! We had many variations of skating, such as moonlight, couples and waltzes.

“Locals were not familiar with roller skating so they hired GIs from Schofield Barracks to show people how to do it.”

“I wanted to go to school to become an executive secretary,” Dorothy said, “but my older sister, Marian, said no. She was the eldest of seven. She said she was going to open a drive-in, and I would manage it.”

Marian named the drive-in after Dorothy, who was very personable and served as the face of the restaurant. Shio put up the money, Marian was the entrepreneur and Dot ran its daily operations

In addition to Dot, her older twin brothers, Kenneth and Walter Harada, and their wives helped develop the restaurant and another company, Marigold Market.

Dot’s Drive Inn opened in 1940, next to the skating rink, which closed when World War II began. “The concrete slab of the skating rink was the parking lot for the restaurant,” Mel Sakaba said. It was covered with asphalt in the last 10 years.

“That was over 70 years ago, and very few of the people parking here know that tidbit of history,” he added.

Dot’s Drive Inn offered lunches and dinners with fountain and carhop service. It was popular with soldiers during the war, despite blackout conditions.

In 1950 the drive-in opened a large showroom and became a restaurant and nightclub.

“The nightclub could hold 400 and was packed six nights a week,” Sakaba told me. “In the 1950s and ’60s, Dot’s in Wahiawa was the finest place for dining, dancing and entertainment in Central Oahu. There was nothing to rival it.”

Andy Cummings — famous for his beautiful 1946 song “Waikiki” — and his Hawaiian Serenaders were frequent performers.

“We had local entertainers and brought in troupes from Las Vegas and Japan,” Sakaba continued. “We even had some exotic dancers. The most popular was Diane Ross, who had a monkey that undressed her.”

Ross and her pet ring-tailed monkey named Squeaky were particularly popular with soldiers from Schofield Barracks. Ross called her an “educated monkey.”

Billing herself as the “Dainty Diane Ross,” the dancer said she was formerly a circus performer and picked up two pet monkeys as a result. She named them Tweaky and Squeaky. She trained them to disrobe her.

Mimicking Diane, the monkeys also would strip themselves, doing a version of “monkey see, monkey do.”

One reviewer in 1956 described one of the floor shows. “It had a comic, Japanese chorus girls, Japanese singers, two exotic dancers, a baritone, a jazz cartoonist, and a stripper, all backed up by a dance band.”

Dot’s offered two 95-minute shows a night. The comic emcee, Bennie Ray, “did pantomime, dancing, jokes and mimicry. He’s versatile and entertaining,” the reviewer said.

Christine Jorgensen also was a popular performer at Dot’s. She was one of the first men to have gender reassignment surgery in 1951. She was a good singer and nightclub entertainer.

Dot’s still uses the showroom for banquets and events. Amy Hanaialii Gilliom, Willie K, Pure Heart, Na Leo Pilimehana, Kapena, Frank De Lima, Augie T, Andy Bumatai and Theresa Bright have performed recently.

Randall D. McCord was stationed at the Navy radio station north of Wahiawa. It had opened in 1941 and took over what the Navy felt was a more vulnerable location in Wailupe, in East Oahu.

“Dot’s in Wahiawa was the favorite restaurant of the guys of the radio station in the late 1950s,” McCord says. “It was like momma’s home cooking with a Hawaiian flavor.”

Mccord is happy that Dot’s is still open for business so many decades later.

“I think they are an icon of the central plains. My friend’s daughter recently visited Oahu and went to Dot’s for fried rice, eggs, Portuguese sausage, toast and coffee. She reported it was just as good as her dad said.”

Marian’s nephew Jim Harada took over operations in 1982, perpetuating the business model and growing the operation. He still directs the company while operations are run by his son, Scott Harada.

Marian’s Catering was launched around 1956 in Haleiwa and features local, Hawaiian and Japanese food. “Catering is the largest source of revenue today,” Mel Sakaba said.

“We cater weddings, anniversaries, and the chief’s luau at the Wet ’n’ Wild amusement park. “We cater every event from before birth to after life.”

“Dot’s is one of the oldest businesses in Wahiawa and maybe one of the oldest family restaurants on the island,” said Scott Harada. “We want to be ‘the next best place to home.’”

The Rearview Mirror Insider is Bob Sigall’s weekly email that gives readers behind-the-scenes background, stories that wouldn’t fit in the column, and lots of interesting details. My Insider “posse” gives me ideas for stories and personal experiences that enrich the column. I invite you to join in and be an Insider at RearviewMirrorInsider.com. Mahalo!