Suda’s final farewell
Iconic family store to close Saturday
Carol Suda talks with customer and friend Rick Gannon on Wednesday afternoon. Roy and Carol Suda, owners and operators of Suda Seafood & Deli off Piilani Highway in Kihei, will close for good on Saturday. The Maui News / KEHAULANI CERIZO photos
Carol and Roy Suda have been the sole employees of Suda Seafood & Deli for nearly 11 years. The two reopened Suda store in 2008 after the original landmark location at the north end of South Kihei Road closed in 2003.
Kekoa Gomard was on his way back from fishing when he visited Suda Seafood & Deli to order saimin and a burger. He said he would go to the original location and has seen Maui change a lot over the years.
Carol Suda looks at an old page of The Maui News as she recalls the history behind the Suda family business, which dates back nearly 50 years over two locations.
Carol Suda talks with customer and friend Rick Gannon on Wednesday afternoon. Roy and Carol Suda, owners and operators of Suda Seafood & Deli off Piilani Highway in Kihei, will close for good on Saturday. The Maui News / KEHAULANI CERIZO photos
Carol and Roy Suda have been the sole employees of Suda Seafood & Deli for nearly 11 years. The two reopened Suda store in 2008 after the original landmark location at the north end of South Kihei Road closed in 2003.
Kekoa Gomard was on his way back from fishing when he visited Suda Seafood & Deli to order saimin and a burger. He said he would go to the original location and has seen Maui change a lot over the years.
Carol Suda looks at an old page of The Maui News as she recalls the history behind the Suda family business, which dates back nearly 50 years over two locations.
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KIHEI -- The iconic Suda Seafood & Deli, synonymous with the golden years of Maui's mom and pop stores, will close Saturday -- this time for good.
"This is like my third retirement," Carol Suda said Wednesday afternoon. "It's a final, final, for sure."
"I'm getting too old," she added, laughing.
The family's original location at the north end of South Kihei Road, Suda Store, was in business for nearly four decades, back when local businesses such as Kitada's, Azeka's and Waikapu Stop were alive and well. Started by matriarch Hatsuko Suda in 1967, the landmark snack shop closed in 2003 when its lease expired.
Hatsuko Suda's son and former store general manager, Roy Suda, opened the current north Kihei spot off Piilani Highway in 2008 along with his wife, Carol. Carol Suda said her husband was "getting bored" and had a good offer at the second location.
"People were very happy when we reopened," she said. "They would ask, 'Is it the same like down at the old place?' Yes, everything's the same. Nothing has changed."
Lauded by many as the best on the island, Suda's chow fun uses the same secret recipe from Hatsuko Suda.
"I can't give away recipes because they're old family secrets," said Carol Suda. "I promised not to give it away."
Suda Seafood & Deli's simple menu, which includes popular saimin and hamburgers, also uses Hatsuko Suda's original recipes. The store also offers a selection of fresh fish that part-time residents from Canada and the Mainland often purchase.
Roy and Carol Suda have been the sole employees for nearly 11 years, juggling many roles.
Roy Suda handles cooking duties for chow fun, along with broth and noodles for saimin. Carol Suda does hamburgers, the mixing and the pressing, along with chopping onions and slicing tomatoes. Sometimes, the couple's two adult daughters come in to help on Saturdays.
For the Suda family, collaboration is nothing new.
Roy Suda's parents were farmers, who used cotton grown in Kihei to make Japanese quilts and pillows in the 1940s and '50s. When his mother converted a former plantation general store into the Suda Store that many remember, Roy Suda eventually became store manager in 1974. He ran the store and snack shop with outside help and other relatives.
At its peak, the store was the "biggest market around," Carol Suda said.
"Even the tourists used to come in and shop," she said. "We had everything in there, everything a supermarket would have. It was busy."
Over multiple generations, the Suda family name has gathered a loyal following.
"For me, it's special because it still represents the mom and pop stores," customer Rick Gannon said Wednesday afternoon, adding that he has known Carol Suda since young kid days. "There are very few left already."
On his way back from fishing, another customer, Kekoa Gomard, ordered a burger and saimin Wednesday.
"Change is inevitable," he said about the closure, noting that Maui has changed a lot since he was young. "It's how things change that are hard."
Carol Suda acknowledged that owning and operating mom and pop businesses can be challenging in modern times.
"It's hard with all the big stores around, and yet you have your loyal customers that still come," she said. "It is sad, the closing of the old businesses that have been around. But it's time."
Roy Suda, who was busy cooking and cleaning Wednesday, said he will miss what the store was like in the 1960s and '70s, "the good old times in Kihei, before the changes came."
There is one thing the Sudas said they won't miss, though.
"Having to wake up at 3:30 in the morning," said Roy Suda, laughing.
"I think our eyes will open at 3:30 automatically," said Carol Suda.
Carol Suda said the 10 years flew by, and it's been a fun journey. She said she is looking forward to the next chapter of their lives, where they can "do whatever, however, whenever and just enjoy life."
She thanked customers who have patronized their business all these years.
"We will see you around!" she said.
Suda Seafood & Deli, 30 Manao Kala St., Kihei, is open from 6 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. today and Friday and from 8 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. on its final day, Saturday. For information, call 875-6600.
* Kehaulani Cerizo can be reached at kcerizo@mauinews.com.