Taste of Waipahu Turns 20 on Depot Street, Where Waipahu's Next Gathering Place Is Planned

"A gathering place for Waipahu: true to its roots, welcoming everyone to meet, share, and connect." That is how Kamehameha Schools describes Keawalau at Waipahū, a 3.8-acre project. Its developer, Highridge Costa, places the project at Depot and Hikimoe streets. No building there carries that name yet. On Saturday, Nov. 7, though, Depot Street will host a gathering for about five hours.

The 20th annual Taste of Waipahu takes place Saturday, Nov. 7, from 4 to 9 p.m. on Waipahu Depot Street and Hikimoe Street. The Waipahu Community Association is presenting it with Kamehameha Schools. Organizers announced it at the Waipahu Neighborhood Board's Sept. 24 meeting with more than 30 food and craft vendors, student entertainment, a kendama tournament, and the theme "building a stronger community." The theme fits the setting. The festival has moved from venue to venue over the years, and this year it is held on the stretch of street whose future is the subject of a long-running plan.

Four Venues Across Fourteen Years

Over the years the Taste has used whatever space was open to it: a marketplace, a store parking lot, a school campus. This is how the past coverage lines up:

The 2012 listing in Honolulu Magazine placed the festival at Festival Marketplace, just down Depot Street from this year's footprint. The Filipino Chronicle's 2023 preview put the 17th edition in the Don Quijote lot on Farrington Highway, with WTFunk and the Waipahu Intermediate Band on the lineup. Last year KITV's weekend roundup listed the 19th edition at August Ahrens Elementary.

In each of those years the festival needed a host's permission and a host's lot. This year it takes over two public streets, with HPD officers, barricades, and coordination with the city's Department of Transportation Services. That puts the 20th edition on a block that the city and Kamehameha Schools have both drawn plans for.

The Corner With a Plan on It

The city's Waipahu transit-oriented development page describes gradual redevelopment along Depot Street and Farrington Highway. The plan keeps a low-rise, walkable Old Town and puts taller, denser buildings closer to the Pouhala/Waipahu Transit Center station. The Taste footprint sits inside that area. Depot Street will be closed from Farrington Highway to the Waipahu Plantation Marketplace entrance, and Hikimoe Street from Depot to Kahuailani.

Kamehameha Schools' plan for its corner lists 250 to 570 homes for kūpuna and ʻohana at 60 percent of area median income and below, 50,000 square feet of commercial space, and a grocery. In 2023, Hawaii News Now reported that the Times Supermarket on Farrington Highway sits on Kamehameha Schools land and would eventually be demolished for the project. In that report, Pualani Hao, the school's director of planning and development, described plans for "537 homes for ohana and kupuna" with "a commercial component, and amenities."

The same 2023 report expected groundbreaking sometime in 2025. As of late October 2026, the store is still open. Times Supermarkets' store locator still lists Waipahu TIMES at 94-766 Farrington Hwy. At the board's April 23, 2026 meeting, Councilmember Tulba said the project was close to being funded but not yet finalized, according to the city's written summary.

A smaller change is closer. The city's Complete Streets page for Aiea, Pearl City and Waipahu shows a Waipahu Depot Street project with widened, protected shoulders for non-vehicular travel. It is in final design, with that work expected to finish in 2026. Until any of these projects is built, Depot Street's gatherings will be temporary ones like the Taste, set up for an afternoon and cleared away that night.

Saturday, Nov. 7, Block by Block

Holding the festival on the street means road closures, and the closures start well before the food does. Here is the day as organizers described it to the board:

1. Noon. Barricades go up on Depot Street from Farrington Highway to the Plantation Marketplace entrance, and on Hikimoe Street from Depot to Kahuailani. HPD officers will be on site. Businesses inside the closed area will be working around the shutdown all afternoon.
2. 4 p.m. Vendors open. Look for food and craft booths, student performers, and the kendama tournament.
3. 9 p.m. The festival ends. The roads reopen later that night.

The city's 2026 street-use schedule lists different closure hours, 2 p.m. to about 11 p.m. It expects 6,000 people, and it shows the permit application as submitted. With two sets of times on record, plan your Saturday errands around the earlier noon closure. Check the Waipahu Community Association's site before you head out. Organizers said road-closure signs would go up about a week ahead, so expect them around Halloween weekend.

Where the Cars Go

If 6,000 people come, a lot of them will be looking for parking. These are the options organizers gave the board:

• Waipahu Festival Market. Access to its parking stays open during the closures.
• The YMCA. It has offered additional spaces.
• Filipino Community Center and United Church of Christ. Organizers were still in talks with both as of the September meeting.

Access to Waipahu Plantation Marketplace also stays open, so you can still reach its shops that afternoon. If you live within walking distance of Depot Street, walking will likely be the easiest way in. If you're coming from farther up Farrington, the Pouhala/Waipahu Transit Center station is at the edge of the footprint. In 2023, Skyline extended its hours to 10 p.m. for the festival. Nothing has been announced about extended hours this year, so check before you plan a late ride home.

A Kitchen That Won't Be Cooking This Fall

The festival's theme lands about five weeks after a longtime Waipahu gathering spot lost its kitchen. Hawaii News Now reported that a fire on Friday, Oct. 2 badly damaged the kitchen at Leeward Drive-Inn. The diner opened in 1964 and had served meals 365 days a year for more than 60 years. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser gives its address as 94-209 Pupukahi St. and reported on Oct. 14 that fire officials ruled the fire accidental.

The restaurant's GoFundMe says it has opened at 5 a.m. every day since 1964. It names fried noodles, loco moco and kal-bi among its familiar dishes. The money raised is meant to get the kitchen running again and to help workers who lost work. Hawaii News Now reported $1,330 raised toward a $24,000 goal as of Oct. 7. On Oct. 14, KHON reported that the restaurant posted on social media that everyone was safe and that it hopes to rebuild. No reopening date has been announced.

In Waipahu, gathering places are kept going by whoever is willing to host them, whether that's a landowner, a community association, or a family with a griddle. On Nov. 7, the Waipahu Community Association is the host, on two blocks of Depot and Hikimoe streets from 4 to 9 p.m.

If you're wondering how the plans for Depot Street could change the part of Waipahu you see every day, I'm glad to walk through what has been proposed and where each project stands. Reach out to Alicia Fu at Alicia Fu. Let's Connect.