The wife and I are starting to plan our eventual move back to Hawaii more seriously. One idea we’ve been kicking around for something to do is renting space at Aloha Market. At least, we thought we remembered it being called Aloha Market, but I see it now has a website and is called Aloha Stadium Swap Meet & Marketplace. We would be bringing in a bunch of Thai and other Southeast Asian handicrafts to sell there.
The wife really liked going to that market back in our student days, but I think I only ever went once or twice. I was wondering if anyone on the Board has had any experience with renting space there or if that sort of goods might prove popular at the market. Again, we’re just kicking ideas around, but I thought I’d give the question a shot.
Sorry to say I have no experience selling there, but congrats on moving back. Hope it’s not too much of a shock seeing what’s changed since you were last there. I visit yearly and still manage to find a few surprises every time.
We were there for a visit 10 years ago. Still recognizable but yes, many changes. We were lucky enough to watch a movie at the old Varsity Theater during that trip. I hear it developed cracks and had to be demolished. Hard to think that it’s gone. A real institution.
Apologies for posting when I don’t have any answers for you either, but I’m just popping in to say that we’ll be kinda sorta neighbors in a few years, since our home is on the Big Island and we’ll most likely move back there between 2018 and 2020. Maybe we can get together on your island or mine some day!
That would be great. The wife and I are both UH alums. By any chance, are either of you?
I like the Big Island, but my favorite is probably Kauai. But I’m very much a city boy and don’t see myself living far from Honolulu.
Oh man, that is sad. That was a true institution. And Bubbies ice cream nearby afterward. Would Bubbies have stayed in that same spot without the Varsity? I think I heard they’d branched out and even sold their stuff in supermarkets now. In fact, is that Bubbies I spotted on the video? On the right of the screen at about the two-minute mark?
I recall the local newspaper once ran a feature story on the Varsity Theater. One old usher had been there for decades, and he talked about all the regulars he came to know. He said there was one guy who used to go see movies there with his wife until she died. And there was a lady who used to go see movies there with her husband until he died. One day he saw them both standing in line, the widower and the widow, and took it upon himself to introduce them. They ended up marrying each other.
No … our Hawaii connections date back to the late 1980s when we lived in Micronesia, and the only way to get off our island was to fly to either Guam or HNL. Plus, I worked for the College of Micronesia and we did a number of activities together with UH. So we started developing some Hawaiian connections then.
Anyway, for years after my husband and I got married we had no home in the US. When we finally decided, around 2000, that it was time to establish some roots, we had no obligations drawing us to any particular place (my parents both lived outside the US, and my husband’s family lived all-too-claustrophobically near each other in the Midwest).
That being the case, we said to ourselves: “We can settle ANYWHERE WE WANT in America. Where would that be?”
Hawaii was an easy answer We ended up on the Big Island because Oahu property was too expensive. But I have yet to meet a Hawaiian island I didn’t like.
Yes, born and raised on Oahu and graduated in 1999 from Manoa.
I think it’s the same street, but further down, away from University Ave. Bubbie’s is in a one-story complex that has blue siding on the angled roof, but that building is completely white/gray stucco or something, and boxy.
Sweet story.
Not sure if you are interested in posting this elsewhere, but I lurk in the Hawaii subreddit on Reddit. They have 10k subscribers to that subreddit, a mix of locals and visitors/wannabe visitors. You might have luck there.
You need to have a street or area name. “Aloha Market” can either mean Aloha Tower Marketplace, which is the Ala Moana business area next to the 2nd biggest shopping center in the state, or The Flea Market at Aloha Stadium (this area is called Moanalua.)
Moanalua currently has the top school feeder system in the state. Ala Moana, on the other hand, is next to the two top private schools in the state, Punahou and Iolani.
Did you interact any with the East-West Center at UH? The (future) wife was an East-West scholar, I worked in the center’s housing department, and we both lived there.
We were a few years before you. Thanks for the Reddit link. I’ve heard of Reddit but never checked it out before.
The wife thinks I’m joking when I speculate about taking them with us. There is a quarantine period for dogs but dunno about birds.
I think the Aloha Tower Marketplace is fairly new. The marketplace wasn’t there when were lived in Honolulu, but it was there when we visited 10 years ago.
The swap meet out at Aloha Stadium, all the UH students called it Aloha Market, but most of the ones I knew were not from Hawaii, so maybe the locals called it the “swap meet” abck then and I just didn’t pick up on it.
Not directly - I was at a Land Grant institution, so most of our work was with the tropical agriculture folks. My husband has worked with EW Center over the past 5 years or so though, on other stuff. I take it that is after your time?
It’s been nearly 32 years since we lived on the quarantine station. I remember all manner of livestock, from goats to cows to horses, but I don’t recall seeing chickens. Maybe birds don’t carry rabies
The state agriculture department website should be able to advise you.
Back in Honolulu now and I am sad to report Bubbies near the university is gone. Closed last October and replaced by another locally owned ice-cream parlor called Island Scoops. It’s not bad, but it’s not Bubbies. The lady working there when I stopped by told me she used to work there when it was Bubbies too and that there’s still a retail store in the Koko Marina shopping center out in Hawaii Kai. So I went out there yesterday to find it. Yes, it’s there. Worth a trip, especially if you feel like a movies, as there’s a cinemaplex there too.
Alas! I did not have to find out. The pigeons stayed behind. But bird flu was never much of a problem in Thailand, with maybe two dozen or so cases reported total. Not like Vietnam, which continues to have a major problem the last I heard.
Hope you get some answers.
