After a little more than three years in business, King's Hawaiian is pulling the plug on their Hello Hilo restaurant in Gainesville. The family-owned beadmaker announced Monday that they will be closing the one and only location of their fast- casual Hawaiian eatery November 13.
The restaurant features traditional Hawaiian classics like SPAM Musubi, Loco Moco breakfast bowl, Mochi donuts and their "Hula Whip" soft serve pineapple desert.
Despite the menu's unique offerings and large space, it seems not to have caught on as the Taira family had hoped.
"We weren't able to the build the consistent level of business needed to sustain the restaurant long term," Courtney [Taira] and the Taira family said in a prepared statement announcing the closure.
The restaurant - with so many unique features and architectural elements - was no doubt expensive to build and operate. Hobbie Dubose, a veteran of Chick-fil-A restaurants, was Hello Hilo's general manager at opening but was gone before the end of 2023, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Related: Truett's Luau, the Hawaiian-themed Chick-fil-A, first opened in Fayetteville in 2013 but closed earlier this year to complete renovations and just reopened October 23.
In our three visits to the restaurant we found the food decent but a bit overpriced what it was and at the same time found the service poor and the dining area dirty, a trifecta that if a regular occurrence for others, likely contributed to the low sales the restaurant seemingly saw.
Despite our observations, many Atlanta area influencers would have had you believe that Hello Hilo was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
As of November 2, the restaurant has an overall Google rating of 4.3 stars with 1,796 reviews, a good but not great result for a corporately run "showcase" restaurant.
A second Atlanta area Hello Hilo was proposed along Gordy Parkway in East Cobb, but after a 4-1 vote by the Cobb Board of Commissioners seemed to pave the way for things to move forward, King's Hawaiian leadership ultimately decided that the conditions in the approval were too burdensome and they said they "didn’t feel like they were welcome," so they abandoned the plans. The property, in front of the former Park 12 Cinemas, was eventually developed into a Fifth Third Bank.
Did you ever make it to Hello Hilo? Are you surprised to see Hello Hilo close? What would you like to see open in place of Hello Hilo in Gainesville?
Please share your thoughts below.
5 comments:
I stared at "The family-owned beadmaker" for entirely too long. Love your work still Eli.
Also, Fifth Third Banks may be the new storage unit or mattress store.
While I agree with the author that the prices are high for what you get, every fast food restaurant is that way today.
I love this place. The chicken sandwich is one of my favorite chicken sandwiches. It's a very nice restaurant and friendly staff. THE ONLY BAD THING WAS THE LOCATION! Who located in the middle of nowhere??? They should be held accountable. It's miles and miles away from anything. No one is going to travel that far for a meal. They should consider opening it is a different part of East Cobb or Cobb parkway. Cobb county has the people to support it. Bahaha breeze is gone so Barret parkway is open to something new like this. Fire the people that picked the location and marketing.
Anonymous @3:05PM, the article talks about the proposed location in East Cobb that got smacked down. Talk to your local representatives.
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