Oʻahu Winter Guide 2025: Featured Local Businesses

For this year's O'ahu Winter Guide we are featuring three businesses to travel outside of Waikīkī for — one that will take you to the neighborhood of Kaimukī for shopping, one to the farm lands of Kunia for an afternoon of sipping locally-made rum and one in Mānoa Valley for a Mediterranean-inspired lunch or dinner.

Tucked away on Waiʻalae Avenue in Kaimukī, you'll find Island-Boy, a curated gift shop by Oʻahu-born artist and designer Andrew Mau. The store specializes in small-batch products that you often won’t find anywhere else.

Some of these products, such as the block print greeting cards, embossed leather coasters and shaka bottle opener, are Mau’s creations. Mau also creates flower arrangements, makes lei and teaches lei-making workshops using locally-grown flowers.

Other products are made by local and off-island artisans who emphasize quality over quantity, such as M33Ms handmade jewelry, bean-to-bar company Honokaʻa Chocolate and Rumi Murakami apparel.

“As a designer, I identified more with the person who spent the time working on the high-quality product rather than the person who just paid a lot of money to put it in a pretty bottle,” Mau said.

Salty Girl, also based in Kaimukī, is one of Mau’s favorite vendors to work with. Owned by Amber Chesebro, Salty Girl is an island-inspired jewelry line with pieces made from real silver, gold and precious stones.

“Amber, to me, is someone that I try to find more of,” Mau said. “She went to the same school as me. She is creating something Hawaiʻi-ish, but it's not so contrived all the time. I think she just does a really good job.”

Mau’s original Island-Boy location was on Rhode Island, where he and Chesebro went to art school and where Mau started out as a furniture designer and teacher.

“It was called Island-Boy because I was on Rhode Island and I was also [from the island of Oʻahu],” Mau said. “And so the name could transfer.”

When he moved home to Oʻahu, Mau closed his Rhode Island store and reopened in town, first in Kakaʻako and now Kaimukī.

During the winter holiday months, Island Boy gets especially busy. Lei workshops are usually put on hold to focus on sales. Customers will receive complimentary gift wrapping for all items purchased.

Island-Boy, Open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., 3464 Waialae Ave, Honolulu, HI 96816, (808) 221-3676.

Located in Central Oʻahu, Kō Hana Distillers produces single-varietal agricole rum made from Hawaiian heirloom sugar cane varieties. Curious visitors can come to the distillery for tours and tastings held multiple times daily.

“We really love the stories,” said brand manager Tiffany Tubon. “The history is really what we are trying to preserve behind these sugar canes.”

The agricole method for rum-making uses fresh cane juice as opposed to molasses or granulated sugar. A tour of the distillery starts in the tasting room with a sample of pure sugar cane juice. Here, guests begin to understand how terroir contributes to the taste of agricole rum, similar to winemaking.

From there, you’ll head outside, where a small garden exhibits the 34 varieties of sugar cane Kō Hana uses. The distillery boasts one of the largest Hawaiian heirloom collections of sugar cane in Hawaiʻi, thanks to co-owner Robert Dawson — a sugar cane expert who searched relentlessly for these varieties.

“These aren’t just sugar canes that they used in the sugar plantations,” Tubon explained. “These are ancient Hawaiian canes that predate that whole era by about 800 years. So these are the original canes that came here to Hawaiʻi [with the first Polynesian settlers].”

The distillery uses each variety for its own unique rum, which means no two taste the same. The juice of the Kea variety is used for wholesale bottle production for bars and restaurants. It has notes of sweet corn and freshly cut grass.

“This type of rum that we’re making is not just your typical industrial-style rum,” Tubon said. “It’s really funky. We’re really capturing the flavor of these sugar cane varieties and getting that nice earthy, grassy, funky flavor.”

For something sweeter, Kō Hana blends the Kokoleka sugar cane variety with local cacao and honey for its award-winning dark rum.

Kō, which is Hawaiian for sugar cane, and Hana, Hawaiian for work, reflect the distillery’s commitment to producing rum without shortcuts. The sugar cane, which is primarily grown on the North Shore, is sustainably farmed and hand-harvested with machetes. From there, it is juiced, distilled, aged and bottled on-site.

Kō Hana Distillers, Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., 92-1770 Kunia Rd., #227, Kunia, HI 96759, (808) 649-0830

Lady Elaine is a neighborhood restaurant in Mānoa Valley serving Mediterranean-inspired cuisine and craft cocktails. Owned by hospitality group Lovers & Fighters, a tight-knit group who have worked together for over a decade, the restaurant exists to serve as a lively gathering place for its community. Servers enjoy sharing stories behind the dishes the restaurant serves and local farmers the chef works with. Overall, the whole staff has an inclination to “talk story” with their guests — a local term for taking the time to engage in conversation. The overall feeling guests get from ownership, which trickles down to their well-cared for staff, is “We want you to have a great time.”

The menu is composed of shareable dishes intended to be eaten “family-style.” Order dishes from the "Ocean," "Land" and "Grains & Vegetables" sections, and with everything on the table you and your dining companions can build your own plate, just like at home. Think grilled octopus, creamy risotto, sumac roasted cauliflower and pimiento lamb chops. There’s also an all-day kid’s menu and sandwiches for lunch.

Cocktails are created by co-owner Ku‘ulei Akuna, who also creates the cocktail list for sister restaurant Little Plum next door. The drinks that evoke nostalgia for locals will be novel for visitors, while "guest cocktails" featured on the list pay homage to local mixologists on Oʻahu, such as Dave Newman, formerly of Pint + Jigger. There are also creative non-alcoholic cocktails and an expansive wine list that covers Old World Mediterranean and New World selections.

The philosophy of the restaurant can be found on its walls, from showcasing local artwork to portraits of historical figures such as Bob Marley and Martin Luther King Jr. Perhaps the most memorable piece of art in the restaurant is one that hangs on the door of the woman’s restroom, Lady Elaine herself – the Mr. Rogers character who would stand up to King Friday XIII and his demands on behalf of the neighborhood.

For all of Lady Elaine’s lovable attributes, the best reason to venture into Mānoa Valley for lunch, or dinner, is to see another side of Oʻahu, a place where locals live, run their daily errands and connect. To see that there is a whole world that exists outside of the curated, well-manicured Waikīkī experience.

Lady Elaine, Open Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m for lunch and 5 to 9 p.m for dinner, 2756 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, (808) 888-3030.