A Da Kitchen specialty, panko-crusted, deep-fried Spam musubi, is fresh out of the fryer Wednesday. Da Kitchen’s most popular dishes have made a comeback in the kitchen of Piko Cafe, which serves breakfast and lunch from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. seven days a week and makes way for Da Kitchen dinner service from 4 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday in a small space next door to Longs Drugs in Kihei. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
In the months after Da Kitchen closed down, owner Les Tomita kept getting asked in the aisles of Costco and Longs when he was going to bring back the restaurant’s beloved chicken katsu and kalbi plates.
“I’m not the front guy, but I know people. We’ve been doing it for 20 years,” Tomita said. “(People asked) ‘When are you going to reopen?’ . . . So you kind of look around, you poke your nose here and somebody says, ‘You know, we got this space. Want to look at it?’
“It just kind of snowballed.”
That’s how Tomita and a few choice favorites from his old restaurant made it into the kitchen of Piko Cafe in Kihei, where employees roasting coffee and flipping ube pancakes in the morning make way for workers cooking deep fried Spam musubi in the evenings.
While it’s not quite the second coming of Da Kitchen — Tomita describes it as “an extension” of Piko’s local-style menu — it’s unmistakably the dishes and flavors of the former location.
LES TOMITA
“A guy came into Piko and they said, ‘Is this Da Kitchen’s food?’ And we go, ‘Yes, we’re implementing some items,'” Tomita said. “He ordered the katsu and the kalbi. He opened his plate when it came out and he said, ‘Oh, this is Da Kitchen food.’ That’s the best kind of story I can tell you.”
Da Kitchen, which closed its Kihei and Kahului locations in July due to the financial impacts of COVID-19, began operating out of Piko Cafe’s 1,000-square-foot space in mid-May, according to Piko owner Richard Uyechi. Tucked into the corner of a Kihei shopping center next to Longs, Piko offers breakfast and lunch from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. seven days a week, while Da Kitchen does dinner from 4 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with plans to add Mondays hours starting the second week in June, Tomita said. It’s a small operation with about five employees for breakfast and lunch and four for the evening shift. Uyechi covers two-thirds of the rent, while Tomita pays the other third.
Both owners say they’re still feeling out the partnership, but so far, it makes sense. Tomita and Uyechi are both local boys from Oahu — “I grew up in Waimanalo, he grew up in a richer neighborhood, I would say,” Uyechi said — with backgrounds in the restaurant industry and complementary passions. The 60-year-old Tomita, who hails from Waialae Nui, prefers “the physical part, the cooking,” while Uyechi, 58, is the businessman.
“We have common ground where we understand what each of us does,” Uyechi said. “That makes it pretty good actually. But me, I’m more of a sales and marketing kind of guy. I thought oh, would be good, I can push Da Kitchen because they’re popular.”
The first day Da Kitchen began cooking, about 10 customers showed up, some of whom just happened to stumble upon the menu outside advertising Da Kitchen dishes. People started telling Tomita that news was spreading on social media and that one post on Facebook about the restaurant had gotten 236 likes.
Prep cook Bryan Fermin makes Spam musubi Wednesday in the kitchen of Piko Cafe, which is sharing its space with a revived version of Da Kitchen, which had to close in July due to the financial impacts of COVID-19. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
For Tomita, the main metric of success isn’t likes or shares, but rather the parking lot.
“I’m not a Facebook guy,” he said. “I’m an old school paper-and-pencil guy. . . . I’m watching the parking lot, and they are walking from their car directly to Piko. The first week it was just strolling and running into us. This past week they are walking straight into Piko at night.”
On Friday night, the operation served about 100 people, he estimated.
Piko had been busy even during the pandemic, but Uyechi said he’s glad to give Da Kitchen a chance to make its way back while taking a breather from the restaurant grind.
“I didn’t want to do dinners because I’m done working 12 hours,” said Uyechi, who used to come in around 6 or 7 in the morning and stay until 8 or 9 p.m. “I need a break too.”
Da Kitchen owner Les Tomita talks about his reopening plan Wednesday outside Piko Cafe in Kihei. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
As a teenager, Uyechi worked at the KC Drive Inn on Oahu and eventually went into fine-dining. He came to Maui nearly 25 years ago and has held jobs ranging from renting out cars to managing Royal Kona Coffee and working for Paradise Beverages.
In January 2017, the Uyechi family opened Piko Cafe.
“Actually the first reason why I got into this was that my son wanted to do it,” Uyechi said. “I told him, ‘You know how hard it is running a restaurant?’ Told him after you’re all tired, you still gotta clean the kitchen. He said, ‘No worry dad, I going help you.’ Now he’s in Arizona. He’s a pilot.”
Uyechi recalled how his son always said “if the food is good, the people will come,” and the customers have, despite the pandemic. Piko Cafe never had to close, relying on takeout orders and federal aid such as the Paycheck Protection Program and the U.S. Small Business Administration’s low-interest loans.
“I just kept going, and I noticed a lot of new faces started coming, and we steadily got busier during that time,” he said.
Tomita said he and Uyechi are “not prideful guys,” so they’ll go with whatever business model customers most want moving forward. He praises Piko’s food, which includes a wide selection of coffees and specialty drinks as well as breakfast items like banana pancakes and plate lunches like chopped steak and mochiko chicken. Nearly a dozen Da Kitchen favorites are on the dinner menu, such as chicken katsu, kalbi, fish tempura and a combo plate of chicken katsu, teri beef, teri chicken and breaded mahi. Customers are already asking for dishes like teri salmon and shrimp scampi, and Tomita has to remind them that “we taking baby steps,” but will have the classics eventually, including the full page of loco moco variations that Da Kitchen used to make.
He said the smaller operation — from a 2,200-square-foot space in Kahului with 25 employees on shift to a 1,000-square-foot venue with about a dozen workers — opens up the potential for franchising.
For now, Tomita’s just glad to be back.
“I want to just thank the community for just supporting us in these first couple of weeks,” he said. “It’s been fantastic, just the outpouring.”
Piko Cafe is located at 1215 S. Kihei Rd., Unit E. For more information, visit www.pikocafe.com or call (808) 793-2671.
* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.
- A Da Kitchen specialty, panko-crusted, deep-fried Spam musubi, is fresh out of the fryer Wednesday. Da Kitchen’s most popular dishes have made a comeback in the kitchen of Piko Cafe, which serves breakfast and lunch from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. seven days a week and makes way for Da Kitchen dinner service from 4 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday in a small space next door to Longs Drugs in Kihei. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
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