Pat's at Punaluu, Hauula, HI (restaurant)

Name:Pat's at Punaluu
Type:restaurant
Street:53-567 Kamehameha Hwy
City:Hauula
State:HI
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:
A north shore landmark where you may enjoy lunching and dining the sea in a true Polynesian atmosphere.

[ Edited by: Dustycajun 2008-09-23 17:21 ]

Pat's at Panaluu Restaurant was located on the north shore/windward side of Oahu. From what little I know, it was a Hawaiian/tropical restaurant with an Irish twist. The owners were Pat and Iris Hallaran. The restaurant was torn down 8 years ago and the grounds now house a large condo/apartment complex. I have also heard that there is talk of building a new restaurant.

While this place was not really Tiki, it had a great tropical Hawaiian atmosphere with the glass floats, bamboo and flora.

An early postcard showing the exterior of the restaurant. Pretty cool with the lei vendor greeting guests at the front door below the Aloha sign.

Two postcards showing the interior tropical decor. The first card is pretty common.

The second card not so much.

This is a more modern postcard showing inside and outside shots where you can see the larger condo development that was built.

Does anyone have either of the menus the hostess is holding?

Here is a matchbook from Pat's.

A nice little table card with the restaurant motto "A place to dream awhile".

The back of the card with the Hawaiian words dictionary.

The middle of the table card shows a map of Oahu and the location of Pat's.

I have only seen two mugs from Pat's. This is the Daga mug.

This mug was posted recently by Bay Park Buzzy appears to be from Pat's as well.

The bottom reads that it was made by Jeanne Ceramics - Hawaii.

Hope you enjoyed Pat's.

Aloha, DC

Wow, that place looked amazing !

ON the North Shore, no less....even better.

Thanks Dustycajun - I never knew the address of Pat's - I'll try to run up to Punalu'u this weekend and see what's there now.

That large concrete condo building has been there since the 60's, so it's not where Pat's was.

Wow, at closer look, those Calder-esque Fishing float mobiles hanging from the ceiling are REALLY cool. A really great example of Tiki Modern.

It appears that it's a vacation rental now

http://www.gigisparadise.com/cottages.htm#The%20Kapa%20Kai%20Hale%20U'uku%20Paradise

It actually looks like it could still be the same structure, but subdivided into separate units. If you look at the vaulted, beam ceilings, they look similar.

far fetched, maybe, but you never know.

Edit : Just re-read the dustycajun post...it was indeed torn down. Some of the bungalows look great. I'd stay there. It's probably 5 min from the Polynesian Cultural Center. Other than that, there ain't much up there, except for the beautiful Pacific Ocean, Chinaman's Hat, and some really nice geography.

[ Edited by: tikiyaki 2008-09-24 19:55 ]

Tikiyaki,

First of all, I have to agree that the glass float mobiles are amazing. That is what originally brought my attention to the postcards.

The way I am reading the history on this is that Pat's at Punaluu started as the restaurant and some beach cottages on a fairly decent piece of northshore property in the 1950s. The upscale condo development was built in the 1970's and the restaurant remained standing until about 8 years ago (1999?). The condo place is still called Pat's at Punaluu.

Here is a pic of the complex with what I am assuming is the restaurant on the right side of the photo.

On 2008-09-24 00:05, Koolau wrote:
Thanks Dustycajun - I never knew the address of Pat's - I'll try to run up to Punalu'u this weekend and see what's there now.

That large concrete condo building has been there since the 60's, so it's not where Pat's was.

I second this one - if you are driving to the north shore from Kailua side, you'd pass the former restaurant location on the mauka side of the road (now totally run down and overgrown) a bit further down the road you see the condo thingy on the left (makai) side.

SO neat to see photos of the restaurant as it once was!

Henrik "VanTiki"

Van Tiki...can you see "Chinaman's Hat" from this location ?

I'm thinking that it's right near there.

On 2008-09-24 22:32, Dustycajun wrote:
The way I am reading the history on this is that Pat's at Punaluu started as the restaurant and some beach cottages on a fairly decent piece of northshore property in the 1950s. The upscale condo development was built in the 1970's and the restaurant remained standing until about 8 years ago (1999?). The condo place is still called Pat's at Punaluu.
Howzit?! I'm a newbie here on the website, but I can answer some questions.
The condo building was originally built in the mid 1970s as a hotel, and the restaurant was right next to it on the Kaneohe side. The check-in counter for the hotel was actually inside the restaurant. In the early 1980s the hotel became condos (and definitely not "upscale"). About half of the condos are available as vacation rentals through each condo's owner or agent.
The building itself has just been renovated with major spalling repairs and new paint, and it looks great now. Many of the unit owners have renovated their own units and they also are pretty darned nice. Some units are still in original condition. They're cheaper to rent or buy. Heh.
As for the restaurant, it was NOT torn down! It's still standing, though in a sad state of disrepair. It's been closed for many years, but a new owner is in the process of going through all the red tape to tear down the old restaurant and build a new one that should look a lot like the old one! HOORAY!!!

Here is a pic of the complex with what I am assuming is the restaurant on the right side of the photo.

Nope, the restaurant is on the far LEFT side of that photo! Looks like kind of an A-frame roof. The structure on the far right is a private home and not part of the Pat's At Punalu`u property.
Hope that helps. Any more questions, fire away!

*On 2008-09-27 15:42, VanTiki wrote:*I second this one - if you are driving to the north shore from Kailua side, you'd pass the former restaurant location on the mauka side of the road (now totally run down and overgrown) a bit further down the road you see the condo thingy on the left (makai) side.

Nope. The restaurant is on the makai side, not the mauka side. And it's only a few feet away from the condo building. Actually, it's attached to it!

On 2008-09-27 16:00, tikiyaki wrote:
Van Tiki...can you see "Chinaman's Hat" from this location ? I'm thinking that it's right near there.
Nope, you can't see it from Pat's At Punaluu. Chinaman's Hat is in Kaneohe Bay, around the corner from Kualoa Ranch, so the Koolau mountains block the view.
You know where Crouching Lion Inn is? Well, four more miles up the coast toward the north shore, and that's where Pat's is located. Right past Crouching Lion you curve inland briefly as you go around Kahana Bay, then Pat's is just a little farther.

Lika Nui...Are you the same Lika Nui from Hawaii threads ?

If so, ALOHA, and welscome to TC. You need to hang here more often, as it's always good to have Islanders in here for correct answers on stuff, like the ones above.

On 2008-09-29 14:35, tikiyaki wrote:
Lika Nui...Are you the same Lika Nui from Hawaii Threads ?
Yep, that's me! Good to 'see' ya!

If so, ALOHA, and welscome to TC. You need to hang here more often, as it's always good to have Islanders in here for correct answers on stuff, like the ones above.

Thanks for the welcome, brah. Unfortunately, I don't have enough free time to hit a lot of forums, so HT is pretty much it for me. I'll try to check in here at TC now and then, but if there's something you really need answered you might have to PM me over on HT.
I may try to grab a few shots of the restaurant at Pat's and post 'em here sometime soon.
And pardon a slight bit of thread drift, but... when the heck are you and the band coming to Oahu?!?!??

On 2008-09-29 14:50, LikaNui wrote:

On 2008-09-29 14:35, tikiyaki wrote:
Lika Nui...Are you the same Lika Nui from Hawaii Threads ?
Yep, that's me! Good to 'see' ya!

If so, ALOHA, and welscome to TC. You need to hang here more often, as it's always good to have Islanders in here for correct answers on stuff, like the ones above.

Thanks for the welcome, brah. Unfortunately, I don't have enough free time to hit a lot of forums, so HT is pretty much it for me. I'll try to check in here at TC now and then, but if there's something you really need answered you might have to PM me over on HT.
I may try to grab a few shots of the restaurant at Pat's and post 'em here sometime soon.
And pardon a slight bit of thread drift, but... when the heck are you and the band coming to Oahu?!?!??

Cool ! Man, we'd L O V E to play Oahu. We'd need someone with some serious $$$ to bring us over there. But we all agree that a few weeks residency in Waikiki would be something we'd all love to do....I mean...who WOULDN'T ?

Thanx for posting here, and when you get some pics of Pat's, by all means, post them.

Hopefully you'll find some time to stop back here and talk story about the classic places in Waikiki that you know about.

On 2008-09-29 14:50, LikaNui wrote:
I may try to grab a few shots of the restaurant at Pat's and post 'em here sometime soon.

LikaNui,

Thanks a lot for the information on Pat's. I had read on the web that it was closed and made the assumption that it had been torn down. I did read somewhere that the owners were going through the permit process to build a new restaurant. That would be great if you could post some pictures of the old building.

Thanks,

DC

I finally got a chance to drive up to Punaluu this morning.

The "Pat's at Punaluu" building is still there, but is unused and in disrepair. It's also had a lot of the charm remodeled out of it, as is usually the case.

Address is correct:

This is Pat's at Punaluu:

Exterior view - ocean side:

Interior view (through some very dirty windows) looking in the opposite direction (inland) from the postcards.

When there, I didn't think this was the same building, but you can see the tree trunk roof supports, the same roof joists, and what's left of the interior koa paneling on the upper half of the wall on the left.

Another interior view - looking southeast, parallel to the ocean. The tree trunk supports were obviously encased in a low lava rock wall at some point. Also note the white ceilings and walls - light and bright! I guess that koa was just too dark.

The condo building was once amazing, as it had angled concrete railings with geometric cutouts all around the building. But as LikaNui noted, the rebar rusted and big sections of the railing were spalling off. Instead of fixing the concrete railings, they removed them and put up standard aluminum railing. It's ruined the sweeping taper from top to bottom the building once had - too bad.

Aloha, LikaNui, from HTer Ron W., glad to see you here!

I 2nd the tikiyaki sentiment!

Punalu'u is almost the East side of Oahu, pretty much the borderline with the North shore, but rather far from classic NS.
We used to hang in the bar and resteraunt as pictured, in the 70s/80s. It was very relaxed, and needs to be revived. Those pix bring back fond memories of times that are fading fast from daily life.
I usually suggest Pat's for vacationers that don't want to short rent a regular pad in the country.

On 2008-10-04 17:43, msteeln wrote:
Aloha, LikaNui, from HTer Ron W., glad to see you here! I 2nd the tikiyaki sentiment!
Thanks! And thanks to Koolau for saving me time by taking those photos, too.

We used to hang in the bar and resteraunt as pictured, in the 70s/80s. It was very relaxed, and needs to be revived. Those pix bring back fond memories of times that are fading fast from daily life.

I've learned that Bruddah IZ and the Makaha Sons used to play there, among others. Sure would love to see those days come back!

On 2008-09-23 17:20, Dustycajun wrote:

I have only seen two mugs from Pat's. This is the Daga mug.

This mug was posted recently by Bay Park Buzzy appears to be from Pat's as well.

The bottom reads that it was made by Jeanne Ceramics - Hawaii.

Here's a different one from Pat's on ebay right now :

Buzzy Out!

Another mug from Pat's, this one has the same Tiki logo as the matchbook I have .... somewhere.

DC

Check this out, someone made a website out of all of the stuff on this post!

http://patsatpunaluu.org/Restaurant.html

Weird or cool or???

DC

I would say its cool! and flattering that they used your post research but they should have given you proper credit. That site is somehow attached to a homeowners association for the condo project you all were talking about. Its is in their Breaking News section.

Quotes from the home site:

"This page contains notices and breaking news of interest to our owners and tenants, including scheduled powerwashing and other maintenance and improvement projects, upcoming meetings and events, any breaking news about service or utility outages, and much more."

"Check our new Restaurant page by clicking here!"

For some reason the home page is password protected.

The quotes come from this site: http://patsatpunaluu.org/Notices.html

some how it is connected to this site:

http://www.patsatpunaluu.com/

[ Edited by: abstractiki 2009-10-25 12:59 ]

Here's the matchbook that matches the mug.

The website is nice, but I think they should have mentioned where they got the images. It's never cool to post a picture of something that doesn't belong to you unless you give props to the person who took that picture or who owns that item.

The latest word is that the person who was planning to purchase the old restaurant, tear it down, and build a new one, has backed out of the deal. Mostly because of the bad economy and also because of some stifling local regulations. Inside sources say that it was going to take roughly $7 million to purchase, demo and rebuild. A couple of others considered it very briefly but ran away pretty fast. Don't hold your collective breath waiting for anything to happen at that location.
Darn it.
Sorry I haven't had time to check in here for a while...

Go to the website for Pat's and you'll find a PDF of the listing of the restaurant for sale.
I'm told by a couple of their board members that there has been zero response to the listing. It's way overpriced, and the restrictions in the new variance are untenable. Who would spend roughly $6 million to tear down the old restaurant and build a brand new one, when they're only allowed to be open four hours a day?!??
Prediction: the old restaurant will be required to be torn down soon because it's a safety hazard. The property may be offered for sale for someone to build a private home, or the condo association may build another condo building on the site, IF they could get financing to do so (highly unlikely).
Frankly, the existing condo building and the one next door (Hanohano Hale) are unsightly blights along that coast, where everything else looks as it did in the 1950s.

Here is a clever little menu I picked up from Pat's. Some funny drink names, an Irish Blessing, and cheers around the world!

(Orchidaceous!! Who thinks of that?)

There was probably no finer St. Patrick's Day party on the Islands then at Pat's.

DC

On 2008-09-23 17:20, Dustycajun wrote:
Does anyone have either of the menus the hostess is holding?

I spotted one of the Tapa menus on ebay a while back

And a postcard showing the outdoor dining patio.

DC

DC, I have seen that Tapa print on that menu before, I think it's a print on cheap packing paper, while the menu the waitress is holding appears to be real Tapa.