Nisshodo and Fujiya: The Stories Behind Honolulu’s Last Remaining Legacy Mochi Shops

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the March 2017 issue of HONOLULU. It was updated in March 2019. 

Hawai‘i loves mochi. We eat it as a snack, bring it to potlucks, give it as gifts and wedding favors. Perhaps more than anywhere in the world, we’ve adopted Japan’s sticky rice treat as our own and evolved it.

Pink and white chichi dango, liliko‘i cheesecake daifuku, even the nouveau ‘ulu-spice vegan butter mochi—Island-style mochi says as much about our food culture as it does about our increasingly entwined identity as a people.

Now that spring is in the air, Girls’ Day themes dominate Honolulu’s mochi shops. Look for colorful pink and green treats (symbolizing cherry blossoms and young leaves) to mark the occasion on March 3.

SEE ALSO: Konnichiwa, Here’s Your Girls’ Day Heads Up and Menu Roundup

A Hawai‘i Thing: Nisshodo Mochi

Photo: Steve Czerniak

In ‘Iwilei’s warehouse district, in the spot where a Japanese TV crew showed up at Nisshodo Candy Store, third-generation owner Mike Hirao recalls the moment he discovered something. “They had never heard of chichi dango,” he says. “They thought it was a Hawai‘i thing.”

It was a bit lonely, that moment: the realization that the country that spawned Nisshodo’s sweets—from pillowy mochi stuffed with fillings to the floppy-soft rectangles of pink and white chichi dango—didn’t recognize its signature item. Hirao corrected the TV crew: Chichi dango was indeed from Japan, from a part of Hiroshima called Shobara. His grandfather Asataro Hirao, who opened Nisshodo in 1918, discovered it on a visit after World War II, when donations of powdered milk flooded the impoverished country.

That’s how the decidedly un-Japanese ingredient got into his chichi dango. To this day, powdered milk gives it a rich creaminess that’s helped elevate it to iconic status. People take it to Neighbor Islands. Foodies from the West Coast to New Jersey seek it out when they get off the plane. Nisshodo’s chichi dango is so popular that one woman’s primary job is to wrap the 6,000 pieces the shop produces each day. Around Girls’ Day, that volume can nearly triple, and then, “We get help for her,” Hirao says. “Sometimes, we have to sell them naked. That’s the only way we can keep up with demand.”

Photo: Steve Czerniak

So the TV crew was right after all. Chichi dango is a Hawai‘i thing. It belongs to us now. And it’s the same with our entire mochi-verse: The way we buy the sweet orbs at supermarkets, order trays for potlucks, give it as Girls’ Day gifts—mochi is pan-cultural, as much for everyday snacking as for special occasions. In some ways, the story of mochi ingraining itself (ha!) in the pantheon of local food tracks the story of us, of the melding of distinct identities into something uniquely Hawai‘i. But there’s far more to it than that.

1095 Dillingham Blvd., Bldg. I-5, Kalihi, (808) 847-1244, nisshodomochicandy.com

SEE ALSO: Your Guide to Mochi in Hawai‘i: How to Eat it, Where to Buy it and More

Editor’s note: Part of a four-part series titled “Where the Heart Is,” this article was published in the December 2023/January 2024 issue of HONOLULU.

Making Old-School New Again

Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino

Sometimes, life isn’t like a box of chocolates, it’s more like a tray of mochi. Mochi stuffed with crunchy peanut butter or a fresh strawberry cradled in sweet red beans. Pumpkin crunch mochi for fall, yuzu liliko‘i or ube haupia mochi for anytime, chocolate peanut butter Oreo mochi on special. At the new Fujiya Hawai‘i, one of Honolulu’s two remaining old-school mochi shops, you never know what you’ll find—which was exactly the case for Devin Wong when he took over the 70-year-old shop two years ago.

Mochi is one of those treats that pervades the local snack scene. Wong grew up with it, the soft pillows of chichi dango and sweet, bean paste-filled rounds that show up year-round at potlucks and in company break rooms on Girls’ Day. By the time he came to Fujiya, after the pandemic set in motion a chain of events that left the place without a manager, Wong already had a long history in food. He’d owned Milano Freezer gelato and yogurt shops, co-owned the Makino Chaya seafood buffet, and was working at Koha Foods.

Fujiya was different. “When I got to meet the staff”—half of whom he thinks were more than 70 years old—“I got the feeling that everybody was there for the love of it,” he says.

Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino

Heart, in fact, drove the transition. Buoyed by memories of the Fujiya sweets his grandmother brought home from work at Shirokiya, Chris Kanemura—whose main job is owning and running a Maui café that helps survivors of sex trafficking—bought Fujiya with his family in 2018. Just before the pandemic, they poured more than half a million dollars into building out its bright new storefront in McCully and importing state-of-the-art senbei- and mochi-making equipment.

When Kanemura asked Danny Kim, a friend and owner of Koha Foods, who might make a good manager, Kim suggested Wong—his own employee and brother-in-law—essentially paving his way back to entrepreneurship. Wong owns 90% of Fujiya Hawai‘i now.

SEE ALSO: Your Guide to Mochi in Hawai‘i: How to Eat it, Where to Buy it and More

“It’s a legacy business. It’s Hawai‘i-style mochi. That’s what we have to pass on to the next generation,” Kanemura says. “It’s super good, a nod to the old style, but it’s also new. Devin had the same vision.”

Wong talks about teaching old-guard employees to replace long hours of brute work with efficient processes and college-age part-timers the basics of counting money and using a broom. His workdays start at 6 a.m. and often run 12 hours, ramping up to 20 hours in late December. He’s coming up on his third New Year’s at Fujiya, when mochi-making for ozoni soup—the symbolic first meal of the year for many Japanese families—means days of nonstop work.

Wong lights up when he talks about it. “You just bring in all your uncles, aunties, friends because there’s never enough labor. My two kids are here, my wife, my brother-in-law,” he says. “That’s kind of an exciting time, being with your family.”

Photos: Aaron K. Yoshino

On days off, Wong and employees often show up to throw around ideas for new flavors. The most promising ones get run by Kanemura for feedback. That’s how almond float mochi at Chinese New Year and pizza manju for the Super Bowl joined a growing lineup of new-style traditional sweets, all of it posted on Instagram for younger generations to discover. This year, there was even a James Beard Award nomination for Outstanding Bakery. For Wong and the evolving world of local snacks, life really is like a tray of mochi—you never know what you’re going to get.

930 Hau‘oli St., Mō‘ili‘ili, fujiyahawaii.com, @fujiyahawaii

SEE ALSO: At Heart: “I Got the Feeling Everybody Was There for the Love of It”

Mari Taketa is the editor of Frolic Hawai‘i and dining editor of HONOLULU Magazine.