Walk Keawe Street on a Friday night in August and the block sounds the way it did fifteen years ago. Lights are back on at the Hilo Town Tavern address. The Hilo Hawaiian Hotel's dining room, dark for stretches over the last decade, is serving prime rib again. Waianuenue Avenue is scheduled to close for a block party. None of these are new buildings. They are the same rooms, reopened, and that is the point.
The story downtown residents are telling each other this summer is not about growth. It is about a bayfront that spent years losing anchors and is now, quietly, getting them back. If you already live here, the question is less "what's new in Hilo" and more "which of the places I used to go are open again, and under whom." Here is the answer, in the order you would encounter them on a walk from Keawe toward the bay.
The old Hilo Town Tavern room, under new hands
The building on Keawe Street that most of downtown still calls "the Tavern" reopened in late April as Hale Kanikapila, run by a four-person hui: Thom Kerns, Jayne Kerns, Jen Grieco, and Fal Allen. They spent the winter gutting the space, extending the bar, and repainting the black interior in yellow and burgundy. Bartender Dao Nguyen, who worked the same bar back when it was the Tavern, is behind the counter again.
The programming is the tell. This is not a restaurant that opens for dinner and closes at ten. The weekly schedule reads:
- Mondays — DJ nights
- Tuesdays — Open Mic
- Wednesdays — Karaoke
- Thursdays through Saturdays — live music, jazz and R&B billings, and touring acts
The patio has already hosted the return of the Pink Drag Show, which had been in exile since the Tavern's closure. The kitchen is doing what most Hilo bar kitchens do not bother with. The menu leans into the town's actual food history rather than a generic pub template: a Crispy Yuzu-Kosho Karaage Sando pulling from Japanese kitchens, Vinha D'Alhos Loaded Fries pulling from Portuguese ones, a Hilo Pastele Saimin nodding to Puerto Rican plantation cooking, and a Huli-Huli Chicken and Papaya Salad. Owner Thom Kerns has described the food as an attempt to honor local food culture through elevated bar food, and the menu reads that way.
The relevance for a resident is narrow and specific. There is now a room downtown that is open late, has live music every night the doors are open, and takes its kitchen seriously. That combination has not existed on Keawe Street since the Tavern closed.
A Kaua'i institution takes over the Hilo Hawaiian dining room
Two blocks toward the bay, the dining room at the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel on Banyan Drive has a new tenant. Bull Shed, the steakhouse that has operated on Kaua'i for more than fifty years, opened its Hilo location at the end of July. This is worth stating plainly because it is easy to miss: after five decades on one island, Bull Shed's first expansion of any kind is here. Not Honolulu. Not Maui. Hilo.
The operation runs through Castle Resorts and Hotels. Executive Chef Ryan Brannigan is running the kitchen, coming out of two decades that included the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, the Waikoloa Beach Marriott, and The Royal Hawaiian in Waikīkī. The dining room has been renovated to open the windows toward Hilo Bay and Mauna Kea, which, on a clear winter evening with snow on the summit, is one of the more specific dinner views on the island. The menu carries the Kaua'i signatures — prime rib, steaks, and seafood — with a short list of Hilo-inspired dishes unique to this location.
What this actually means for a resident: the Banyan Drive strip now has a steakhouse with a real chef and a fifty-year brand attached, competing directly with the bayfront's existing dinner-with-a-view choices at Hilo Bay Cafe and Ponds. That is the first time in a long while that a resident deciding where to take out-of-town family has three legitimate options along the water rather than two.
One Saturday, one street: 808 Day
If you were going to pick a single day this summer to see the shift compressed into one block, it is 808 Day, on August 8. The Big Dreams Foundation is closing Waianuenue Avenue in front of the Hilo Town Market for a block party built around a lineup that includes Hirie, Likkle Jordee, Wavvy, and These Guys featuring Small Axe, Mr. 83, Wehilei, and Koa of Innavision, with Osnizzle spinning between sets.
The sponsor list reads like a small-scale map of downtown's current operators:
| Element | Operator |
|---|---|
| Beer garden | Kona Brewing Hawai'i |
| Kava lounge | Kanaka Kava |
| Live art curation | Hawai'i Island Art Alliance |
| Creative workshop | Moon Kine Tingz |
| Flash tattoos | Oblivion Tattoo Shop |
| Additional sponsors | Big Island Grown, KWXX, Hilo Downtown Improvement Association |
That is the working roster of downtown right now. If you have lived in Hilo for a while, you can read that list as a directory of which businesses are healthy enough to co-sponsor a street closure. A year ago, several of those slots would have been harder to fill.
The regulars still holding the line
New openings only mean something against the backdrop of the places that never left. A short, honest bayfront and downtown roster for a resident planning the week:
- Moon and Turtle — small, farm-to-table, still the room to book for an anniversary. Reservations continue to be the constraint.
- Hilo Bay Cafe — Pacific fusion and the sunset panorama over the bay. The comparison point against which Bull Shed will be measured.
- Cafe Pesto — the historic bayfront wood-fired pizzas and salads that have anchored the corner for a generation.
- Puka Puka Kitchen — ahi don and chicken katsu, open only 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Plan accordingly.
- Poke Market on Waianuenue Avenue — pickup window only, no seating, poke that has been voted among the best in the state.
- Nori's Saimin & Snacks — the late-night saimin room locals default to when other kitchens have closed.
- Kum Yo's Okazuya near the airport — bentos to grab on the way to Kona or the volcano.
- New Chiang Mai — downtown Thai since 2007.
- Lehua at 600 Imiloa Place — a newer entry (featured in a Bon Appétit "On the Line" episode) working traditional Hawaiian ingredients through modern technique on a weekly-changing menu.
The interesting move in that list is Lehua sitting alongside Cafe Pesto and Nori's rather than replacing them. Downtown Hilo does not tend to churn its restaurants the way Kona's resort strip does. When a place opens here, it usually stays, and when a place closes, the room often waits for the right operator rather than turning into something generic. Hale Kanikapila is exactly that pattern.
What's on the calendar the rest of the season
Two venues carry most of the resident-facing programming outside the restaurant scene.
The Palace Theater on Haili Street is running its usual mix through August and into fall: independent film, the "Made in Hawai'i" screening series, an in-house SHREK Week around the Palace's own 2024 stage production, benefit concerts (including a Boys to Men Mentoring Hawai'i evening with silent auction and live music), and free educational programming on Kīlauea for anyone who has been meaning to bring visiting family somewhere that is not a beach.
The UH Hilo Performing Arts Center has its 2025–26 season on sale, with the Dance Collective performance on September 26 as the next major date on the calendar. Season subscriptions renewed in late July, and single tickets are available through the box office online or by phone at 808-932-7490, Tuesday through Thursday mornings.
Between the two, a resident who wants to be out of the house on a weeknight has more options this fall than at any point in recent memory.
The through line
Put the pieces together and the pattern is not a boom. It is a repair. The Tavern room is open again. The Hilo Hawaiian dining room is serving again. The block in front of the Hilo Town Market is closing for a street party the community is co-sponsoring. The Palace is running a full slate. UH Hilo PAC has a season on sale. Cafe Pesto, Moon and Turtle, Nori's, and Puka Puka are still doing what they have always done.
For a resident, the practical takeaway is that "downtown for dinner and something after" is a workable sentence again on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night. That has not been reliably true in a while. The rooms that used to make it true are the same rooms making it true now, which is the most Hilo way this could have happened.
If you own a home in Hilo and are thinking about how this shift affects the long-term value of what you own, or if you are on the ownership side of one of the bayfront properties watching this recovery from the outside, our team at Marisa Piazza is happy to talk through what we are seeing in the market. Schedule a private consultation whenever the timing is right.
