Foodflash: Get Ready, West Side—Side Street Inn Is Opening Next Month
Hali‘a by Side Street Inn is bringing the famous fried rice and pan-fried pork chops to ‘Ewa Beach.
Pan-fried pork chops. Photo: Courtesy of Side Street Inn
News that Side Street Inn is opening in ‘Ewa Beach small-kine rocked our world. The legendary hole-in-the-wall that Colin Nishida launched near Ala Moana Center 33 years ago has expanded exactly once, to Kapahulu 13 years ago. Visions of its massive platters of fried rice, pan-fried pork chops and chicken gizzards—simple dishes Nishida learned from his mother—crowning tables overlooking the waterfront at Wai Kai had us immediately DMing Side Street’s Instagram.
What’s the story? Who are the players? And what kinds of dishes will Hali‘a by Side Street Inn, slated for a mid-July opening, bring to the splashy, two-year-old water park? Here’s what we found.
“It’s a different atmosphere. Beautiful setting, same food. And you’ll have lots more choices,” restaurant co-owner Cheryl DeAngelo says. “Hali‘a will definitely have the classic dishes that Side Street Inn is known for. We have a prix fixe menu called Colin’s Classics, that will remain the same. And we’re gonna add on a lot of seafood dishes, a lot of different preparations of fresh fish.”
Fried rice at Side Street Inn. Photo: Courtesy of Side Street Inn
If you weren’t aware that DeAngelo and her business partner, Lisa Meyer, own Side Street Inn, join the party. DeAngelo is better known as co-owner of the Kaimukī charcuterie shop Bubbly & Bleu with her husband, chef and restaurateur Fred DeAngelo. Around 30 years ago, Cheryl DeAngelo says, Nishida hired her as a bartender, and they remained friends. When she heard in 2016 that the business was in trouble, Nishida accepted her offer to help, and she and Meyer overhauled staffing and operations. After Nishida passed away in 2018, they took over.
“Maybe local style in ‘Ewa Beach just matches. To bring Side Street Inn from town just made sense,” says DeAngelo, who’s from Nānākuli. “I feel like there there’s so many local people, and they’re familiar with our food. Maybe for the last five, six years, we’ve looked at many different locations on the West Side. We’ve been in talks with Wai Kai for over a year.”
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What DeAngelo and Meyer are taking over are the former Lookout/Kitchen Door space upstairs and Boardwalk Café—to be renamed Sidewalk Café—downstairs. Fred DeAngelo is just starting to look at that menu, but DeAngelo says her husband plans to keep the burgers and fish and chips and add bentos and other takeout items, including misoyaki chicken and yakisoba. Total seating, including lānai and outdoor tables and a bar upstairs that seats more than 30, will be close to the 170 seats at Side Street’s OG spot and the 180 seats in Kapahulu.
“Even with this new restaurant, Hali‘a, even though Fred is coming in as the head of the kitchen, it’s really just to make sure Colin’s food is consistent. The same,” DeAngelo says. “We kind of want to just carry on what Colin saw.”
Mari Taketa is the editor of Frolic Hawai‘i and dining editor of HONOLULU Magazine.
