At Heart: A Longtime Restaurant and Banquet Hall Finds New Life

Where the Heart Is

Maui Fresh Streatery  |  Fujiya Hawai‘i  |  Little Vessels  |  Central O‘ahu Event Center

In the world of food and restaurants, the most resonant stories go beyond what’s on the table. Here’s Part 4 of the four-part package “Where the Heart Is” in the December 2023/January 2024 issue of HONOLULU Magazine.

Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino

For Wahiawā

On the surface, the story of how Dot’s in Wahiawā became Mango Street Grill is neat and simple. After 75 years of sizzling hamburger steaks and birthday parties, weddings and other celebrations, Dot’s shut down, an early victim of the pandemic—until new management came and revived the spot as a place for gatherings.

But the story actually rests on a cosmic fluke, as if the universe, in a twinge of nostalgia, steered a Wahiawā-born businessman and his partner out for a drive through his old hometown. Daryl Akiyoshi and Allison Sato were taking a break from a monthslong search for a banquet space they could turn into an event center.

They had no idea Dot’s had closed. But there it was, boarded up: the old restaurant, lounge—and banquet hall. “It was almost an immediate reaction: This is it,” Akiyoshi says. “I knew the banquet space. There’s not too many like this one, of this size, in this area. We thought we needed to revive it. For the community.”

Akiyoshi loves banquets. They were his specialty when he worked at Waikīkī hotels and later, when he ran Ko‘olau Ballrooms in Kāne‘ohe. Banquets are most often celebrations, occasions when the buzz of happy people permeates a room. The loss of Dot’s took from the former plantation town the one space that filled that role.

That’s why Akiyoshi and Sato refurbished and renamed it the Central O‘ahu Event Center. The center’s Mango Street Grill opens every Sunday for dinner and a show, with live music by the likes of Kapena, Tavana, the Krush, and Ledward Ka‘apana and Jesse Gregorio Sr. Other days the space, with its 40-foot stage and parquet dance floor, hosts gatherings of up to 250 people. It’s early days yet, and Akiyoshi and Sato have yet to figure out what to do with the restaurant space. They took a break from vacuuming and office work on a recent Tuesday to fill in the rest of the story.

Photos: Aaron K. Yoshino

Akiyoshi: Me coming from Wahiawā, it was heartbreaking to see Dot’s closed. It didn’t feel right.

Sato: You talk about heart. Daryl stopped the car when he saw that it had closed. His family spent many family dinners at Dot’s and knew all the personnel. It was part of his growing up.

Akiyoshi: My mom, dad, my brother, my sister, even before my sister was born, we used to come in maybe couple times a month to have dinner. It was just like home. I still remember the jukebox. The ambiance was classic coffee shop. Everybody knew everybody.

[After contacting owner Scott Harada,] I walked into the room. I could hear the voices. I could see the people sitting down in the chairs. My whole family was mingling with people we knew on our way to our table. It was alive in my head. That was just a good feeling.

Sato: He looked at me and said, “What do you think?” We were like, we gotta do this. We could not not do this. This is the center of Wahiawā. If we could, we would, and that’s what happened.

Akiyoshi: It’s all good, servicing the community so they can come to a happy place and just have a good time with their families and friends.

Sato: Some are celebrating their birthdays, or their 50th year of graduating from high school. Some come together just to reconnect. They have so many memories of the room. They had their birthday parties, their graduations, or the first birthday for their child here.

Akiyoshi: We just had Wasabi dance band. People in their 70s and 80s, some come in with their canes, they drop their canes and they’re boogying down on the dance floor. They’re just happy to be together and having a great time.

Sato: And I have the best job ever—I can dance on the floor with them.

Akiyoshi: I told her I’m gonna write her up, she’s dancing on the job.

Sato: It’s customer relations! It’s like a party every weekend.

130 Mango St., Wahiawā, @mangostreetgrill