As you pull up to Waiahole Poi Factory on the windward side of Oahu, the first thing you notice is that it feels like more than just a simple roadside food stop.
The weathered green-and-blue storefront sitting off Kamehameha Highway is timeless, like a photo out of a history book. In front of the building, a line of people wait near a takeout window for their orders of Hawaiian plate lunches.
I’ve visited Waiahole Poi Factory many times over the years. There are few places on the island to get Hawaiian food, and even fewer where the meal comes with a strong sense of place and history.
Article continues below this ad
When I visit, I always order the kalua pork and chicken long rice with poi, lomi salmon and haupia (a coconut milk-based dessert similar to pudding). Other items on the menu include laulau (pork and fish wrapped in steamed taro leaves), squid luau (sliced octopus cooked in coconut milk with taro leaves) and beef luau (a Hawaiian beef stew).
Keliko “Liko” Hoe (owner), Thor Gran, Kauanahe Kalahiki-Gohier and Amber Waikiki at Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
Amber Waikiki prepares a plate lunch at Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
Visitors and locals eat at the tables outside Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
If you want to go all out, you can add the Sweet Lady of Waiahole, the factory’s signature dessert. It’s named after the popular local Hawaii song, which tells the story of a woman who sold fruit along the roadside in Waiahole. The dessert is made with house-made kulolo (a taro dessert made with coconut milk and sugar) topped with a haupia-flavored ice cream.
Article continues below this ad
“I always look at Hawaiian food as food that comes from our kupuna, our ancestors,” manager and owner Keliko “Liko” Hoe told SFGATE.
That relationship runs deep in Hawaiian tradition, where taro is regarded as an elder sibling of Native Hawaiians. That connection gives poi, which is made from steaming and mashing taro, a deeper significance that extends beyond just food.
“The place itself has its own character,” Hoe said. “It has a lot of history, especially food-wise. It really has hundreds, if not thousands of years of feeding people. And I think on Oahu, especially, places like that are pretty rare,” he said.
The Kanaka Nui plate lunch comes with lau lau, kalua pig, long rice, squid luau, haupia, poi and lomi salmon at Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
The Sweet Lady of Waiahole is the signature dessert that consists of warm house-made kulolo (steamed taro, coconut milk and sugar) and haupia ice cream at Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
For Hoe, that history is part of what makes Waiahole Poi Factory special. Hawaiian food, he said, was traditionally something shared at family gatherings rather than something people could easily find daily. “You can get something that is actual Hawaiian food, and you don’t have to wait for a party, you know. You can pretty much come every day,” he said.
Article continues below this ad
The valleys that fed
For generations, Waiahole and the neighboring Waikane valleys were home to farmers who cultivated the taro used to make poi. They were among Oahu’s most important taro-growing regions.
“Taro production and taro growing in Waiahole, it goes back hundreds of years. And actually Waiahole was really well known for its quality of taro and the amount of taro that it grew,” Hoe said.
For generations, streams flowing from the Koolau mountains supported the irrigated taro fields throughout the valleys.
Article continues below this ad
A man holds a taro leaf while standing in the loi.
Hawaii State Archives
A couple pound taro at their home in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, 1922.
RJ Baker/Hawaii State Archives
But Hawaii changed dramatically after Western contact in 1778.
Development reshaped Oahu, and many agricultural landscapes disappeared. Waikiki, once a wetland with fishponds and taro fields, became a resort after the Ala Wai Canal drained the water and opened the area to urban development.
Article continues below this ad
Like Waikiki, Waiahole Valley was reshaped in the years following the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by business interests. Starting in the 1910s, water was siphoned and directed to sugar plantations in central Oahu, reducing stream flow that had long supported taro growing.
“On Oahu, Waiahole remained one of the last big taro-growing areas,” Hoe said. “As Oahu became more and more developed, you got less and less taro lands.”
After statehood in 1959, Waiahole landowner Elizabeth Marks planned to evict farmers in the 1970s and turn the area into a large residential development with thousands of homes, apartments and townhomes. The Waiahole-Waikane struggle became one of Hawaii’s most significant land-use fights and helped preserve much of the area’s rural character.
The poi factory’s evolution
Built in 1905, Waiahole Poi Factory operated as a working poi factory for decades, passing through several owners. The Sakai family ran the operation, starting in the 1930s, until the late 1960s.
Article continues below this ad
Cousins Keliko “Liko” Hoe (owner) and Leinaala Cruz (administrative manager) pose for a photo in front of Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
When Hoe’s parents, Charlene and Calvin Hoe, acquired the lease to the building in 1971, they transformed the space into something different. During that same time, the Hawaiian Renaissance brought renewed interest in Hawaiian culture, language and arts, so they operated the building as an art gallery and cultural gathering space. Hoe’s dad made traditional Hawaiian instruments at a time when not many people were making them, and the space was used for Hawaiian language and music classes.
Then in the 1980s, they turned the building into an incubator kitchen where people could experiment with food production ideas. “A lot of good things came from that over the 20-plus years that we ran it as an incubator kitchen, and then we switched it up again in 2009,” he said.
Article continues below this ad
The family reopened it in 2009 as a Hawaiian food plate-lunch takeout restaurant. Hoe said he was working as a teacher at the time, but business increased. In 2019, he decided to work at the factory full time.
Keeping tradition alive
Waiahole Poi Factory sources its taro from farms on Oahu, but its main source is three farms on Kauai. “Then sometimes we’ll bring from Maui or the Big Island,” he said.
Poi is made every day, using milled machines. Some of it is hand-pounded in the traditional manner. “We’re probably making at least like 400 pounds of poi every week,” 51-year-old Hoe said. He does the hand pounding with the help of his two kids.
Article continues below this ad
Keliko “Liko” Hoe (owner) hand-pounds the taro into paiai at Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
Keliko “Liko” Hoe (owner) hand-pounds the taro into paiai at Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
Keliko “Liko” Hoe (owner) poses for a photo with the papa he uses to pound taro at Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
“When you hand-pound poi, basically the whole time, you’re folding it, you’re constantly folding it on itself,” Hoe said. “And so it kind of gives it like, it’s hard to describe, but it’s almost like a fuller texture.”
Article continues below this ad
The process takes patience and practice. “Two hundred years ago, every family did it. Every person in the family did it. You know, it was as common as a rice cooker is in Hawaii today,” he said. “I always kind of tell people that are learning, the Hawaiian child growing up in a traditional context, they would have been around the making of that poi for like seven, eight years before they started pounding. So they knew every step already, before they even touched the stone.”
The next chapter
For Hoe, poi represents more than just food. The factory’s motto is “Hanai i ka Ai, Hanai i ke Aloha,” which he said means nourish with food, nourish with aloha.
In 2023, looking to grow its footprint, Waiahole Poi Factory opened a second location at Windward Mall in Kaneohe. “It’s not too crazy. … We’re in the food court, so not a full-size restaurant or anything, but it’s been kind of fun,” he said.
Article continues below this ad
Waiahole Poi Factory Country Store in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
Jewal Ah Lee works at the Waiahole Poi Factory Country Store in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
Waiahole Poi Factory in Waiahole on the island of Oahu, July 23, 2026.
Lance Yamamoto/SFGATE
Hoe said they also opened a country store at the original location in 2024, inspired by his parents’ love of arts. “I always wanted to incorporate arts back into what we do, and so the gift shop is part of that.” It sells locally made artwork, clothing, home goods, gifts and accessories.
Article continues below this ad
That idea of passing something forward is reflected in Hoe’s own family. His son helps make the hand-pounded poi, while his daughter, who studied art, painted the mural outside the gift shop and also helps with the poi production.
“My son, he comes at least once a week to pound poi with us,” he said. “And my daughter, she’s doing art, and she also pounds poi with us too.”
Hoe knows the future of the factory is tied to that next generation. He said his daughter has shown interest in managing the factory in the future, carrying forward the family’s legacy at Waiahole Poi Factory.
“It’s the food itself, of course,” Hoe said, “… but it’s also the community that produces that food, so making sure that there’s the connections between the families, the people, the community, the place, you know, is critical. … The poi factory, we come from a long tradition of feeding people. You know, that really is a big part of who we are.”
Article continues below this ad
Editor’s note: SFGATE recognizes the importance of diacritical marks in the Hawaiian language. We are unable to use them due to the limitations of our publishing platform.
We have a newsletter all about Hawaii, with news, tips and in-depth features from the Aloha state. Sign up here.
Dining and Cooking