Pearl City Food Scene: New Restaurants and Kam Bowl’s Arrival

In late June, Hawaii News Now reported that the Kamehameha Shopping Center location of Kam Bowl told its Kalihi regulars it was closing for good, citing rising rent. A new operation called Alii Diner opened in the same space days later, keeping one of the old kitchen staff on the line. It was the kind of quiet handoff that happens across older Honolulu strip malls all the time. What made it worth watching was where the Kam Bowl name turned up next: not somewhere new, but two miles down Kamehameha Highway, in Pearl City.

What Opened on Kaahumanu Street

By mid-September, Kam Bowl Restaurant was serving oxtail soup out of the Times Waimalu Shopping Center at 98-1264 Kaahumanu Street, the same complex anchored by Times Supermarket. When co-owner Liko Higa and supervisor Kaui'ilikea Kahanaoi sat down with Hawaii News Now's Sunrise on September 13, they said the location had been open about six weeks. That puts the opening around late July or early August, just weeks after the Kalihi space changed hands.

The menu leans on the dishes the brand has always been known for: the oxtail soup, a mango guava barbecue, and a newer addition driven by customer requests, a slow-roasted prime rib marinated overnight and cooked for three hours. That prime rib runs every Thursday at the original Kalihi-adjacent operation and now at the Pearl City counter too.

The more personal detail is what happened to the kitchen's lead chef. Ryder Yoshida has spent 30 years cooking professionally, and with this opening he moved from employee to business partner and co-owner. Higa said during the interview that she'd asked Yoshida about his goals back when she first hired him, and ownership had always been the answer he gave.

The Recipe Was Already Here

None of this is the first time this particular oxtail soup has had a Pearl City address. The Kam Bowl name traces back to a bowling alley of the same name, where Kapiolani Coffee Shop served the soup that made the whole operation famous. When the bowling alley closed in 2007 to make way for a Walgreens, the coffee shop's founders, Gary and Liko Mijo, kept the recipe alive elsewhere. By the time Kam Bowl reopened as a standalone restaurant in the old Kenny's space in Kalihi in 2016, the Mijos were already running Kapiolani Coffee Shop out of the Waimalu Shopping Center on Kamehameha Highway in Pearl City, a role that outlet has held for years.

So while the Kam Bowl name spent the past decade opening, closing, and reopening across two different Kalihi addresses, the same oxtail soup lineage had a steady home in Pearl City the entire time. The September opening on Kaahumanu Street is a new location under different ownership than the Mijos, but it lands in a neighborhood that was never actually without this dish. It just wasn't the version getting the news coverage.

Two Shopping Centers, One Confusing Name

If you go looking for either of these, it helps to know that Pearl City has two separate Waimalu shopping centers, and the names get mixed up constantly. Waimalu Shopping Center sits along Kamehameha Highway and describes itself as supporting local businesses for over 60 years. That's where Kapiolani Coffee Shop has operated, alongside longtime tenants like Catania Ristorante Italiano, Jin Joo Korean Restaurant, Ezogiku, Kabuki Restaurant, Nagoya Bakery, and Baldwin's Sweet Shop.

Times Waimalu Shopping Center is a different property on Kaahumanu Street, built around the Times Supermarket location. That's where the new Kam Bowl counter is, in the same complex as Cattle Company steakhouse, Papa John's, and Ululani's Shave Ice. The two centers are close enough to visit in the same afternoon, but they're not the same building, and mixing them up is an easy way to drive to the wrong parking lot looking for oxtail soup.

How the Kam Bowl Name Reached Pearl City

The June closure notice pointed to increasing rent as the reason Kam Bowl's Kalihi location shut down, a pattern that has played out before at that same intersection. The original bowling alley lost its lease in 2007 when the property was redeveloped for a Walgreens. Nearly two decades later, the restaurant carrying its name closed for a different reason: lease costs rather than redevelopment.

After the bowling alley closed, the coffee shop's founders kept the recipe alive elsewhere. After Kam Bowl's 2026 closure, Alii Diner retained one of its longtime chefs. Kam Bowl returned to Kalihi in 2016, then opened its Pearl City location in 2026.

For someone who already lives in Pearl City, the practical version of this is simple. Kam Bowl now serves the soup on Kaahumanu Street, with a Thursday prime rib on top of it, and it has company two miles away at Kapiolani Coffee Shop on Kamehameha Highway.

What Else Is Cooking Nearby

The oxtail soup story isn't the only thing moving in Pearl City's kitchens this season. Yelp's local "hot and new" list for the 96782 zip code currently includes Anocha, La Birria, Moon Korean BBQ, and Ry's Poke Shack alongside a handful of others, a sign that kitchen turnover here isn't limited to one restaurant chasing headlines. Naks Cafe, tucked inside the Pearl City Don Quijote, has built a following for its burgers in a spot most people wouldn't think to look for one. None of these are connected to the Kam Bowl story directly, but they add up to a neighborhood where the food scene keeps changing shape without losing its older anchors.

That mix, decades-old counters next to newer ones, single-family strip malls holding four generations of the same soup recipe, is not something you'd get from a listicle ranking Pearl City's ten best restaurants. It takes watching the addresses move to see it.

The Short Version

If the craving hits on a random Tuesday, both counters are open. Kapiolani Coffee Shop is still on Kamehameha Highway, running the same recipe it's kept since before the bowling alley closed. Kam Bowl opened its Kaahumanu Street location in late July or early August, with a co-owner who spent three decades earning his way to the name on the door. Two addresses, under two shopping center names people mix up constantly, both serving a soup tied to Kam Bowl's history in Kalihi.

I like keeping track of these kinds of shifts because they say something about how a neighborhood actually functions, not just how it photographs. If you've found another Pearl City kitchen worth the drive, or noticed a business move you think is worth watching, I'd like to hear about it. That's the same kind of local attention I bring to conversations that are a little more consequential than dinner. Let's Connect with Alicia Fu at Creative Properties Realty.