A Note to Readers: Welcome to Frolic’s New Home

Top, from left: Mari Taketa, Kelli Shiroma Braiotta, Thomas Obungen, Melissa Chang. Bottom: Eric Baranda, Gregg Hoshida, Rebecca Pang, Lee Tonouchi. Composite image: James Nakamura

Fresh, local, fun: That’s Frolic Hawai‘i. That was us in our earliest incarnation as the Islands’ first all-digital site covering everything from nightlife and movies to fashion and food, and it’s us today, when Hawai‘i’s onolicious food scene is our entire world. You’re reading this at the latest point of our journey, at our new home on the website of HONOLULU Magazine.

It’s still amazing to me that Frolic is part of the HONOLULU ‘ohana. Seriously, HONOLULU was created by King David Kalākaua in 1888. It’s the longest-published magazine west of the Mississippi, the slick, ambitious city magazine I grew up aspiring to write for. Frolic’s story? If you’ve followed us a while, you know our path from Gannett-owned Metromix Honolulu (2008) to Nonstop (2010) to Frolic (2014), and that for part of this time we were unpaid and independent. At our core, that’s who we still are—a small but scrappy team of editors and freelancers with regular jobs who do what we love in our spare time. When we’re not eating, we’re scoping out the food and drink scene, dreaming up new ways to bring it to you, and of course planning our next meals. For a tiny media entity like us, joining an icon of local journalism feels like scoring a seat at the grownups’ table. It says a lot about HONOLULU that it’s welcomed Frolic into its fold.

Some things we want you to know:

• Frolic is still Frolic—we just got bigger. We’ve merged with Biting Commentary, HONOLULU’s digital food blog. That means our coverage of what’s new and notable from street eats to haute cuisine, breaking food news, rankings of your favorite foods, and roundups that connect eaters with eateries will be supplemented by the kinds of thoughtful pieces and longer reads that were BC’s hallmark. Plus, since pretty much the entire staff of HONOLULU loves to eat, you’ll be seeing more of their tasty posts.
• We support local. Having grown up in the Islands, we see both sides of the equation, and we know what it is to dream big and work hard, to take care of our families and communities to build a strong and caring future. Where we can, we’ll shine our light here.
• We communicate passion. The dishes and places we write about, we love enough to tell you to go try—and yes, we’ve already told our friends and probably been back ourselves.
• We love hearing from you. Whether you’re reporting a typo or pitching an idea for a post (to the reader who asked for comforting rice dishes for cool weather: We’re working on it!), stay in touch with us on Instagram and Facebook or email editor@frolichawaii.com. Or pitch something you want to cover—we love discovering tasty new voices.

Fresh, local, fun: Now Frolic’s story is part of HONOLULU’s story. Welcome to our latest chapter.

Mari Taketa, digital managing editor