On August 8, 2024, it will have been one year since wildfires ripped through parts of Upcountry Maui and the Hawaiian island’s populous West Side, where flames ravaged the historic town of Lahaina. A visitors’ mecca and beloved local hub, Lahaina was home to 13,000 people, at least 102 of whom died in the fires. More than 80 percent of the businesses located there, employing 7,000 people, were within the disaster area. Many bars and restaurants, drivers of Maui’s tourism-based economy, burnt down. Others were shuttered.
Today, though establishments on its outskirts are reopening, Lahaina largely remains off limits, a grid of ruins blockaded by the National Guard and mired, say residents, in bureaucracy. As of April, thousands were still living in temporary lodging. The fires exacerbated a housing shortage that was already making it hard for locals. Drinks pros spoke of industry colleagues who felt forced to leave, leading to labor deficits in the hospitality sector. Meanwhile, following government messaging to stay away after the fires, tourism has tanked, with visitor numbers to Maui down by more than 25 percent between May 2023 and 2024.
Business owners are worried. Though the news cycle has moved on, “Maui’s still hurting,” says Garrett Marrero, the owner of Maui Brewing Company, whose Lahaina location was closed by the fire. “As the economy continues to deteriorate due to the slowing of tourism and the high cost of living, it will be negative, especially for a place like Lahaina that is looking to grow back and heal.”
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Nevertheless, the island has a powerful grassroots asset. In the absence of swift government action, the food and beverage community has banded together to get things done. “Maui is tight-knit, and the bar and restaurant community is small,” says Isaac Bancaco, a chef whose iconic restaurant, Pacific’o, burnt down. “A lot of us came up in the industry together, so we’re one family. In the wake of the fires, that held true. ”
On the eve of the anniversary of the wildfires, owners, mixologists, and drinks producers reflect on the ways their industry is helping their island not just to recover, but also to thrive.
Supporting Relief Efforts and Local Nonprofits
“The first responders were the citizens of Maui, not the Red Cross, National Guard, or FEMA,” says Ashley Davis, the co-owner of the restaurant group Hana Hou Hospitality. “Employees who lost homes showed up to make meals for other people.” Chefs and bartenders launched community kitchens, including Chef Hui Maui, where co-owners of Wailea’s new locavore cocktail bar, Tikehau Lounge, ran cleanup for the preparation of thousands of daily meals.
Support came from the global bar community and national companies like Republic National Distributing and Tito’s Handmade Vodka, which sent employees to the island six months after the fires to volunteer with nonprofits. Island bartenders pitched in on events, including Mixing for Maui at San Francisco’s Kona Street Market and the Hawai’i Food and Wine Festival’s Kōkua Restaurant and Hospitality Fund for Maui.
Bartenders launched homegrown efforts, too. At rum specialist Esters Fair Prospect in Wailuku, owners Jessica Everett and Suzanne Navarro raised upwards of $15,000 with Donate the Daiquiri, directing sales of their signature drink to affected F&B workers. “While there were so many amazing nonprofits, if someone had to wait and fill out forms, that was not useful to them,” says Everett, whose bar became a distribution hub for donated supplies. “They needed money in their pockets right away.”
Now some are turning their efforts into long-term initiatives. Marrero raised funds through Maui Brewing Company’s Kōkua Project, with 750 breweries around the world making charity beers and donating $1.5 million in proceeds to Maui charities. Today he’s partnered with the Global Empowerment Mission on the nonprofit MBC Fire Fund, “focused on getting people into houses.”
Jackie Keefe, the general manager of the shuttered Macadangdang, went from pitching in with Chef Hui to helping islanders liaise with FEMA. Now she’s working with the conflict resolution nonprofit Ola Maui and is planning her own 501(c)(4) “to hold the legislature accountable” on environmental issues, such as those that exacerbated the fires. “I was in the F&B industry my whole working life,” she says. “You have to be able to talk to different people. I have these skills and want to use them in a way that works for the community.”
Lasting efforts like these are crucial to the island’s recovery. Davis, who had 14 people living in her 1,200-square-foot home in the weeks after the fire, got plenty of early donations to the GoFundMe she set up for staff, but, she says, “It’s later when people need help. I don’t know anybody who received money from big nonprofits that received a lot. And we still have staff living in hotels.”
Hiring Displaced Bar Workers
“We hired 75 percent of our staff from people who lost jobs in Lahaina,” says Julia Tallman, the owner of Makawao Public House, a bar and restaurant that opened in Upcountry Maui late 2023. “Assistance was taking so long; everybody needed jobs.” Makawao Public House not only gave those professionals much-needed income, it also gave them a work home. “A couple of staff were struggling with heartache from the fires, but us being there for them did create family. Everyone calls us ‘Pub Fam.’”
Mari Howe, who was Pacific’o’s beverage director at the time of the fires, points out that Tikehau, the name of the bar that hired her after Pacific’o burnt down, means “peaceful landing” in Tuamotuan. Tikehau co-owner Jeffrey Groh counts 13 employees who had worked on the West Side. “You wanted to hire someone who lost their job, so you could help take care of people that needed taking care of,” he says. “If people don’t have a regular schedule, something to go back to that gives them normalcy, I don’t think the trauma ever ends.”
With so many still mourning and displaced, there’s also been some resistance to returning to normalcy. But businesses can’t afford to be shuttered indefinitely, and the work has proved positive for owners and staff. Hana Hou Hospitality’s Mala Ocean Tavern was the first restaurant to reopen on Lahaina’s Front Street in February 2024. “Some disagreed. But we don’t have deep pockets, and the restaurant wouldn’t be there if we didn’t open it,” says Davis. One of the group’s establishments was lost; another hasn’t reopened yet. “But we had employees come work at Mala from those restaurants, and people wanted to come back to work. They helped us clean, get ready, repair things. Insurance didn’t happen right away, but because of the amazing people who work with us, we were able to reopen.”
Maintaining Maui’s Bars as Community Spaces
All of that is to say that Maui’s bars and restaurants are epicenters of community. “That’s why we wanted to open a bar,” says Everett. “The core of it is bringing people together. It’s literally something we wrote into our business plan.” In the local’s town of Wailuku, Navarro and Everett kept Esters’ doors open throughout the disaster. “If staff had to not come in, that was fine. But so many people had lost so many things and needed a place to hug it out. A lot of people came in shell shocked.”
Mala Ocean Tavern, one of six restaurants that survived behind the old pineapple cannery on the north side of town, is now among the oldest buildings left in Lahaina. “We want to honor that,” Davis says. “Countless anniversaries, birthdays, and baby showers have happened at Mala. When you walk in, it’s almost like you can forget for a second.”
Even under-the-radar spots have taken on new significance post-fires. Davis’ co-owner Javier Barberi has a counter-service spot, Pizza Paradiso, in a strip mall in Ka’anapali, north of Lahaina. “I hadn’t done much with it,” he says. “But one thing lacking in West Maui now is bars. So we started staying open late. We made drinks behind the counter, added karaoke, open mic, trivia.” Now Barberi is expanding into the space next door with a tiki bar called Pineapple Robot.
“If people are having hard times, they don’t want to have hard times forever,” says Groh. “They want to go out, forget their troubles, celebrate. If we can bring joy into people’s lives like that, it’s a necessary thing.”
Prioritizing Local Suppliers, Highlighting Local Culture
Along with that role comes a cultural and economic responsibility. The people running Maui’s newest craft cocktail bars have felt it acutely. “Our whole concept is utilizing fresh, local ingredients,” says Howe. “It’s really important, especially since we opened right after the fires. We have that power as bartenders to make a drink that tastes good and helps support this company or that farm.”
Among Tikehau’s suppliers is O’o Farm, once the bespoke grower for Pacific’o. “We can’t do the same thing that Pacific’o did because we’re a small cocktail bar,” says Groh, “but we can use edible flowers, fresh herbs, and other things from them just to make sure that producers have an outlet.”
Becky Speere’s Hale Ihe Farm supplies Tikehau and Esters with calamansi and other ingredients. “The fires totally affected my sales. I’m still reeling.” says Speere. “But I’m being supported by mixologists that take their bars seriously, and I’m proud to work with them.”
At Pilina, which opened at the Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea this past January, locavorism goes hand in hand with a sly educational mission. Maui Gold pineapples, Ali’i Kula lavender, Maui Tea Farm mamaki tea, Ocean Vodka, and Wailuku Smoke Pepa Agave Spirit, all island ingredients, make up the drinks on a menu designed around Maui’s ecology and culture. “The concept was in fruition before the fires,” says general manager Cameron Hall. “Now it has a lot more meaning that we are supporting people from the island.”
Vendors, buyers, and the wider brewing community rallied around Koholā Brewery, the only drinks producer that lost a facility in the fire. The Big Island’s Kona Brewing Company started contract brewing for owner Mary Anderson. Bev Tech, her draft systems vendor, and Bargreen, her equipment company, shaved costs and time off for the build out of her new brewpub and restaurant in Wailea, and when her flagship ale relaunched in March, restaurants like Duke’s Beach House in Ka’anapali made a big deal out of celebrating it. Before it was destroyed, Koholā’s taproom was known as “Lahaina’s living room,” Anderson says. “We talk about Aloha spirit here and what we call kuleana”—responsibility; caring for land and community. “People came out of the woodwork to get us back on our feet. It gives me energy and faith to keep going.”
Building Toward Responsible Tourism
Despite residents’ recovery efforts, the island remains far from self-sufficient. “If we’re not bringing tourism back, there will never be the money to rebuild Lahaina,” says Marrero. “Like it or not, tourism is the number one industry in Hawai’i.”
But while visitations are down, now is the time to reconceive Maui tourism for the sake of the community’s future, hospitality pros say. “The fires on the West Side exaggerated underlying tensions that have always existed. Hawai’i’s history is complicated in relation to the United States, in relation to tourism, and all of that is very real for people,” says Groh.
One amplified problem is Lahaina’s housing shortage. “Before the fires, people were pushing out locals and turning housing into Airbnbs. Who is going to work there if they can’t afford to live there? If the people who lived in Lahaina aren’t there, is it still Lahaina?” asks Davis. “We have to think about our local communities in a different way, and Lahaina has an opportunity to be an example for the entire world.”
Part of that work is refocusing visitors’ expectations of hospitality here. “A lot of people just stayed in Ka’anapali and went to Lahaina,” says Tallman. “But Wailea is beautiful, Upcountry is beautiful. We need to get out of the mindset that Maui was Lahaina. It is hard to adjust, but we have more to offer, and eventually we’ll rebuild Lahaina a little differently.”
The drinks community can help in that evolution by moving forward, and creating spaces that are welcoming and respectful of both locals and visitors, says Bancaco, who is partnering with Anderson on Koholā’s new spot. “My family is from Lahaina, and I’m from Maui, but Pacific’o was just one drop in the bucket. The recalibration we need as a community is much larger,” he says. “I have expertise in food, hospitality, and operations, so that’s how I’m going to best contribute, from a hospitality perspective that is also responsible. When I look back ten to fifteen years from now, I want to be proud of the path we recovered on.”
Dispatch
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Betsy Andrews is an award-winning journalist and poet. Her latest book is Crowded. Her writing can be found at betsyandrews.contently.com.
