With 2024 well under way, I know I should be focused on working toward a productive year and a brighter future. Yet here I am, still relishing the bittersweet taste of days — and dining venues — gone by.

It started with my most recent column, which evoked comments from a couple of kama’aina who also remembered the Maui Frontier restaurant as the forerunner of The Landing, which came before the Chart House, which preceded Cary and Eddie’s Hideaway. That same week, I saw a Facebook post by my friend and fellow pidgin enthusiast, Lee Tonouchi, referencing a recent column in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser:

“So I wuz looking at Bob Sigall’s Top 25 missed Hawai’i restaurants from his Rearview Mirror column and I wuz tinking which ones I missed. Mines wuz Wisteria and Pearl City Tavern. But den I wondered how comes those wuz my most missed, cuz we used to go Columbia Inn and Flamingo’s way more. Den I realized it’s cuz of da memories I associate with da places. Like when we would go Wisteria or PCT wuz mostly for special occasions. Like for my birthday my faddah would take us PCT. Aftah we went to somebody’s graduation or something, my grandma would take us all go Wisteria.”

The list actually comprised Oahu, not Hawaii, restaurants, although Yum Yum Tree did have one location on Maui along with five on Oahu. Having lived in Honolulu for several years, I also remember Wisteria as a place for special occasion dinners. I never went to PCT, a favorite hangout for military personnel, famous for the live monkeys behind the bar, and the drunken brawls between rival sailors and Marines. My only connection to the place was voicing a rather risque radio commercial for the Tavern’s first Derriere Derby. I’ll leave the details to your imagination.

My fondest Honolulu restaurant memories are of Columbia Inn, on Kapiolani Boulevard, next to the Hawaii Newspaper Agency building, which housed both the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Before it closed in 2001, the Columbia Inn bar was constantly buzzing with press and politicians, business mavens and broadcast personalities, sports enthusiasts and players of all sorts. The Roundtable at the heart of the bar was the altar at which I married my second husband, Kelly Dean, on our lunch break from our jobs as reporters for KITV-4 News. For many months before and after our wedding, we dined in the bar or the adjacent restaurant nearly every day. Family-owned and family-friendly, the Columbia Inn felt like a second home to this Maui girl, mainly because owner Tosh Kaneshiro, his wife Bea, and sons Gene and Norman treated each and every customer like family.

A list of similarly beloved, bygone restaurants here on Maui may not reach 25, but here’s a start, in no particular order:

Aloha Restaurant, on Puunene Avenue in Kahului, was the site of nearly everyone’s wedding reception through the 1960s and ’70s. Bottled sodas, fancy cut pineapple wedges, and coconut-frosted yellow cake decorated the tables, and we kids would try to maneuver a seat in front of our preferred soda flavor. Mine was strawberry, which was often hard to come by, so I would have to search for someone to trade my orange to. We always asked for extra poi and opihi; back then, we usually got it, too.

Wimpy’s Corner, where Paia Fishmarket now stands, at the intersection of Hana Highway and Baldwin Avenue, had great burgers. I never found out whether it was true, but as a cartoon lover, I assumed that the place was named for Popeye’s friend (“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”).

Before Maui’s first KFC moved into the location where Stillwell’s now stands, it was Kurasaki Café. While they weren’t as fancy and varied as Stillwell’s array of baked goods, Mrs. Kurasaki’s pies were equally delicious, especially the lemon meringue.

The Longhouse at the Maui Lu Resort in Kihei was beloved for its entertainment as much, if not more so, as its food. It’s pretty much impossible for kama’aina to talk about the Maui Lu without thinking of Uncle Jesse Nakooka.

Because I’ve mentioned them several times previously, I won’t recount details of Club Rodeo, Harold’s Inn, or Golden Jade in today’s column. But please feel free to submit your own memories and suggestions for a future column.

Right now, though, I’m going to redirect my energy to the near future, and attempt to replicate Mrs. Kurasaki’s lemon meringue pie.

* Kathy Collins is a radio personality (The Buzz 107.5 FM and KEWE 97.9 FM/1240 AM), storyteller, actress, emcee and freelance writer whose “Sharing Mana’o” column appears every other Wednesday. Her email address is kcmaui913@gmail.com.