Nearly six months after wildfires devastated Lahaina, some of the town’s small businesses are looking to rebuild.
Pacific Business News spoke with several small business owners who all had thriving businesses on Front Street in Lahaina, locations of which they lost to the wildfires in August.
Ululani’s Hawaiian Shave Ice was among them, which lost two stores and a warehouse. Staff members, 25 in total, lost their homes.
The company has since raised more than $271,000 on GoFundMe to help support staff members. Co-owners Charlotte and David Yamashiro and Brad Edgerton had been growing the business when the fires erupted.
They still have a combined 10 locations in Hawaiʻi, Texas and California. However, the Front Street store had been its highest-grossing spot.
They plan to move forward on Maui and elsewhere with a franchise model while retaining their employees who aren’t quite ready to come back to work after all they’ve been through, they told PBN.
Michele and Qiana Di Bari are another husband and wife team that endured the tragic wildfires. They owned Sale Pepe Pizzeria e Cucina, which they founded 10 years ago, as well as managed the 30-year-old restaurant Pacific’o on the Beach.
Their home was one of just four in their neighborhood that survived — but both restaurants burned.
In the short term, they plan to relaunch Sale Pepe in Kāʻanapali. In the future, they dream of a new restaurant back in Lahaina.
“We want to come back for the community — that’s the reason we really want to open again," Michele Di Bari said.
