Every Store Has a Story: The Saito Family and Pa‘auilo Store
By Hadley Catalano
It might just be that a simple bento roll is what has kept the Saito family of Hāmākua in business all these years, and helped their family store to recently reach its 63rd anniversary. You may have heard about those bento rolls at the Pa`auilo Store. Maybe you read a brief paragraph in a guidebook suggesting you make Pa`auilo Store—a small storefront on highway 19 along the Hāmākua coast—a stop on your way from Waimea to Hilo. Perhaps your friend lives nearby in one of the picturesque towns that dot the cliff-side community and frequently feeds his appetite with the Korean chicken bento.Whatever serendipity brings you there, the homemade roll is worth the drive, and so is the story behind the longtime family-operated store.
While any small family business will find it hard to stay competitive these days, it may be that the long-lasting traditions valued by both shop owners and patrons along the East side have been a contributing factor to the sustainability of this mom-and-pop shop. There are many historical general stores like Pa`auilo Store scattered around Hawai`i Island—still run by generations of families who started in business years ago. Grandchildren and great grandchildren of the original Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Portuguese businessmen now stand behind the counter, stock shelves and make deliveries. Unfortunately these stores—the ones that have been in business for more than 50 years—are the last of their breed. It’s all the more reason to preserve their existence, continue their stories and provide a living example of how the foundations of hard work, dedication and community commitment can help perpetuate the culture and lifestyle of the Hawaiian people, of all ethnic backgrounds.
From the early to mid-1900s, when sugar plantations along the Hāmākua coast were at the height of operations— immigration, labor and commerce were thriving up and down the East coast of Hawai`i Island. In the sleepy town of Pa`auilo—situated less than 10 miles south of Honoka`a—packed together along the small roads in the old village, there existed two grocery stores run by two Filipino families, another third store, a vegetable stand, two restaurants and a number of other small businesses. It was during this time, in 1949, when business partners Torao Saito and Pedro Eugenio took over the Pa`auilo Store from the Theo H. Davies Co. sugar plantation, which had operated the small grocery store along the highway.
“My father-in-law used to work for the plantation store before the company leased it to him,” said Miriam Saito, wife of the late Earl Saito, Torao’s son. He began work in his father’s business after returning from the Navy. “It was so big back then, it was more like a department store [of today]. We sold clothing and food; there was a meat market and we had two gas pumps.”
The lively 73-year-old great-grandmother has worked in the family business for the past 42 years. (She did “odds-and-ends” jobs beginning in 1959.) She continues, telling how Earl and his father used to drive down to Hilo to pick up the store’s supplies that came in by freight (a tradition that would eventually be part of Earl’s sons’ memories as well) and describing the freshness of the meat market.
“The meat came from my father-in-law’s cows. He raised them on Hawaiian Homeland pastures, and every Sunday he would go riding and pick out the cows to slaughter. On Monday he would pick up the slaughtered meat,” she reminisced. “The area was booming back then. People from all the neighboring towns like `Ō`ōkala would come here, but after the plantation closed everything went down.”
Earl took over the store from his ailing father and, in the 1970s, he transformed the business to Earl’s Snack Shop, sensing a need in the community to follow a trend and revive the declining market. He sold hamburgers, French fries, milkshakes, sandwiches, hot plates and cold drinks. From there the business began to grow over the years, with the help of Earl’s sons, Mark and Miles, and son-in-law Schoen Maekawa. In 1981 Earl’s also started selling bentos, the typical Japanese home-packed meal, which boxes rice, a chicken or fish option and a pickled or cooked vegetable, and they soon became a lunchtime trademark favorite for locals.
Maekawa, who, according to Saito, made delicious sushi plates and rolls for his family at home, invented Earl’s Bento Roll. By taking all the elements of the bento plate, he rolled them all together with nori into a sushi-like roll.
“People are often confusing the bento roll with a sushi roll,” explained Saito. “There is a difference. The sushi rice is made with vinegar and the bento roll rice is just plain rice.”
Capitalizing on their popular specialty foods, the family started a catering service, (winning the bid at the former Hyatt Regency) and three lunch wagons in 1987 to service the island community—especially construction workers and hotel workers along the Kohala Coast. Between the store and the other services, the family business peaked at 22 employees. In time, the economic downturn would effect Earl’s business, bringing the lunch truck down to one and employment down to five people. However, following in the footsteps of their late father, with hard work and a determination to bring local, favorite food to the community, Mark and Miles opened a second store in Waimea—called Earl’s Waimea—in 2009.
In 1994 Kamehameha Schools acquired the bankrupt lands of the closing Hāmākua Sugar Co., including Pa`auilo Store; and in October of 2010 the trust decided to tear down the old store building, deeming it in poor shape. The trust offered the Saito family a five-year lease in an adjacent building just 30 yards away from their former location.
Today, the Pa`auilo Store sits in a space that was once the former office of Hāmākua Sugar’s industrial relations department, sharing the building with the Pa`auilo Post Office. Newly renovated by the trust, the new store’s grand opening was held on December 22, 2011. It would have been Earl’s birthday.
In a congratulatory message to the family, both the Hawai`i County Council and State Senate acknowledged and applauded the Saitos’ exemplary employees, excellent customer service, quality food and community connection. One of the plaques reads:
“Whereas the Saito family has welcomed, fed and also provided for the small Pa`auilo community for over three generations—[and] continued to serve Pa`auilo proudly as a gathering place with familiar faces and Earl’s famous Bento Rolls… we recognize and congratulate the Saito `ohana.”
The original plantation store and community landmark now swings open its wide-hinged doors six days a week. Mrs. Saito can be found working every day, filling out paperwork, chatting with her morning coffee and musubi regulars, or stocking the wooden shelves in the small, freshly painted store with simple grocery items—saving her customers a trip to Honoka`a—and of course presiding over the selling out of the family’s famous rolls and bentos. Ask Mrs. Saito when you come into the Pa`auilo shop and she will take you to one of the small side rooms, which showcases antique equipment used at the stores since the 1950s and photos of family and friends on the walls.
“Here,” she said, pointing out a signed letter. “This is from the president of Portugal. He stopped by and I told him I was half Portuguese. Over here is a note from Cabbage Correira, a mixed martial artist, this is from George Na`ope, and you won’t believe who came in once…Martin Sheen.”
As she went on to tell the tale of Martin Sheen’s charity walk drop-in and how another time a couple had just gotten married and wanted a bento roll and she just had to take a photograph, she is subconsciously demonstrating how she keep’s Earl’s memory alive and subsequently the life of the store and the history within.
Some of the store’s dedicated employees, like Bernadette Johansen, have been working there for 40 years. Carmen DeMello, who grew up in the Hāmākua plantation camps, has worked at the Pa`auilo store for more than 12 years, said, “It takes family to work together to keep the business going.”
Family has indeed been the unwavering moral fiber of the 63-year-old business and many businesses like it throughout the island’s history. Further down the road, in Waimea, Miles and his two children, Tyler, 18 and Marisa, 16, are cleaning up one weekday afternoon during March spring break. The next generation of Saitos, who attend Parker School, are helping their father clean the kitchen and mop, and Saito’s sister, who is a school teacher in Honoka`a sometimes takes calls for food orders. For the Saito family—and all historical family stores—the legacy relies on the strong backbone of personal relationships, community involvement, and loyal patronage.
“This is how we remember and honor our ancestors, the generations before, and we’re trying to perpetuate that and pass that living legacy on,” Miles said. “The grand-opening commemoration service was nice, emotional to see the old store gone, but it’s the name, the family—we are still around and we are rebuilding.” ❖
Contact writer Hadley Catalano: hadleycatalano@gmail.com
All photos courtesy of the Saito family
