Imagine a retail business in which one key measure of sales growth was up 42.2 percent last year, with similar growth this year. You’d be on Easy Street, right? Except this same business is plagued by a perennial problem: Customers…
Geckos are iconic in Hawaiʻi, as much as pineapples or ukuleles, and, like them, are not native to the Islands. The Polynesians brought them here about 1,500 years ago along with other plants and animals.
Kimberly Hahn says no escape waspossible. Growingupwithonly brothers near the red-dirt cane fields around Mililani meant growing up riding dirt bikes and loving it. “The boys weren’t going to play Barbies,” she says with a laugh. “So you either play…
If you have lived in Hawaii for a while, the ranking of the richest and poorest ethnic groups shouldn’t surprise you. The hierarchy has remained the same for the past four decades, says UH ethnic studies professor Jonathan Okamura, who…
Payday is always a great day. It means more money in your wallet or bank account. But imagine if your pay stub had an asterisk and tiny print that was hardly readable: *Each dollar worth only 82 cents. That’s what…
PHOTOS BY MARK ABEIT When people think about the fashion business, they tend to focus on the designer’s creative ideas and the finished products they buy. The beginning and the end. But it takes a great deal of work…
Chinese companies and individuals are investing tens of billions of dollars in America. Here’s how Hawaii businesses and nonprofits are creating relationships with their Chinese counterparts and working to get a share of those investments, with varying degrees of success.…
Football season is prime time for sports bars' bottom line Baseball may be “America’s pastime,” and basketball and soccer reign as the most popular sports globally, but for sports bar owners in Hawaii there is no dispute: Football reigns supreme. “Football is crucial for us,” says Mike…
Maurice Kondo has been collecting things since he grew up on the Hamakua Coast. “My elementary school teacher would tell me, ‘Small things entertain small minds,’ ” jokes Kondo, a principal at INK Architects, whose office at Dole Cannery is a menagerie of treasures,…
