“Man, I wish we had a good Armenians restaurant in Hawai’i.” That’s the type of thing I’ve been saying recently. And I’ve been saying things like this because I’ve been researching restaurants and activities in NYC. Inevitably, I’ll come across something cool and wish we could have something similar in Hawai’i. And the examples don’t always involve restaurants. For example, NYC has a lot of great walkable neighorhoods, with appealing destinations and lively streets populated with people. Why can’t we have a non-touristy place like that in Hawai’i?
I want to use this thread to keep a list of these things as well as discuss the challenges for having them in Hawai’i. Here are two general reasons Hawai’i doesn’t have some of the cool things a cool city like NYC has:
- Lack of high density to have the type of walkable communities I mentioned;
- Lack of affluent individuals in these high density neighborhoods;
- Lack of industries and businesses to attract large number of these individuals;
- Lack of ambitious entrepreneurs that would provide the type of goods and services I have in mind;
In short, the market for the type of amenities I have in mind is too small.
Diners
Am I the only one that would love to have an East Coast-style diner in Hawai’i? Or just more diners in general, as alternative to Zippy’s. I tend to think diners would do well, if they just made solid food–nothing really creative. That seems doable to me.
For some restaurants I’d like to see–e.g., Armenian/Persian–I can understand if getting a cook/restauranteur to Hawai’i would be difficult. But someone to do good diner food? I would think that shouldn’t be too difficult.
Anyway, I would love if we had more diners, including ones that were open late.
Late Night Dessert Spot
I miss Cafe Laufer. To this day, I think they had the best coffee I ever drank (although the quality declined, slightly). Really good desserts as well. They generally closed at 10:00, but it would have been great if there were a place, to get coffee and dessert that stayed open to 12 or a little later.
Interesting, in NYC and Seattle, I had a hard time finding a place like this.
I guess number one on my list would be a Major League Baseball team. I actually think we could support one. Probably no need to run down the list of reasons we can’t, but the reasons seem flimsy to me.
I suppose NBA or NFL teams would be more feasible, just because of the length of the seasons and number of games. But we’re a fairly large city. Bring that level of play to Honolulu and I think it could thrive.
I’m skeptical that enough people would support any type of professional team in Hawai’i. The number of people who would be really into it seems small, relatively to other parts of the country.
And I’m not saying there aren’t Hawai’i people who would be really be into a team. I just think the number of those people are relatively small compared to some other places.
I would agree Hawaii doesn’t have enough people to support an NFL team, but NBA and MLB? I would think that the NBA averages less than 20,000 per game and MLB not much more than that. UH football can draw more than that. That being said though, are Hawaii fans more fair-weather than most? I do not know, but sometimes I feel like we are. But like Las Vegas, Hawaii can draw some tourist to NBA games (ie: Japan and Australia) and MLB games (ie: Japan).
“Fair weather” is what I’m partly getting at when I question the strength of support. I doubt the fan support would be really strong if the team wasn’t doing well. Then again, there fans of other teams like this. Still, why would you want to put a professional team with fans like that?
The idea of drawing international fans is a good point. I don’t know if it’s enough to justify a pro team, though.