Among the almost incalculable losses in Lahaina one year ago were many small, local business locations.
Tiffany Winn is the owner of the collectibles store Whaler’s Locker, which her hanai father had opened on Front Street in 1981.
She told Pacific Business News that about all that remained of the store and its merchandise were meteorites that had been on display. This small business had been doing nearly $1.5 million in annual sales and had six employees before the fire.
Now it’s just Winn and a single part-timer doing pop-ups and selling inventory they’ve secured since then, with revenues now in the tens of thousands.
Still, Winn said, she’s building up capital with an eye toward someday rebuilding on Front Street — the only home she can imagine for a brick-and-mortar shop.
PBN spoke to eight Front Street business owners and found a common theme — the hope that one day they can reopen in the same place.
Jackie Reed, CEO of T S Restaurants, said “If we were allowed to rebuild, we would rebuild right now.”
Reed was speaking specifically of Kimo’s, the company’s landmark seaside bar that opened in 1977. T S Restaurants has grown since then to include four Maui restaurants as well as restaurants in California.
Reed said that the top priority after the fire was checking on the safety of its employees. Almost 300 of its 726 employees lost their homes in the fires and some lost family members as well.
Since then, T S Restaurants has raised more than $2 million to help provide relief for its West Maui workers.
