At first glance, it looks like the inside of any ordinary Chinese food restaurant: a stacked dim sum cart, a leftover bite of pork-filled manapua, and small dipping dishes, crowding the rotating tables, filled to the brim with shoyu. 

But the food had been sitting out for over a month. Flies and gnats have swarmed the sauce-covered chopsticks and are clinging to the windows. As of Thursday, what looked to be half-eaten spare ribs, once soft and juicy, have started to decompose. 

“It’s so stink,” said Alicia Young, a neighborhood resident who lives across the street from the back of the restaurant, where the kitchen is located.

“It smells like death, and it is progressively getting worse.” 

Part of the ceiling of Happy Days Chinese Seafood restaurant, a dim sum restaurant in Kaimukī, collapsed last month, a few days after Hurricane Lala brought heavy rain across the islands. Four kūpuna were injured, including one who was hospitalized, and the nearby roadway was closed for days for fear of the building falling down. And last week, the roof caved in, exposing the restaurant even more directly to the elements just days before another hurricane is set to hit this weekend. As of Thursday afternoon, the eatery’s red wallpaper, air conditioners and art were open to the clouds above.

One of the property owners, Lynn Kajioka, said she is working to remedy the problem but repairs are mired in red tape and challenges with insurance.

In the meantime, time has stood still inside Happy Days, as perishable food remains untouched, infested with bugs. And until it’s cleaned up, the neighbors of Happy Days are absorbing the impact. 

Young, who lives across the street, said that when the wind blows, she can smell the rotting food from inside her bedroom. She rarely opens her windows, and her 7-year-old son, Milo, stopped playing outside on his scooter or on the nearby basketball court because of the odor. They pinch their noses everyday when walking past Happy Days to Milo’s school, Aliʻiolani Elementary. 

At a Kaimukī Neighborhood Board meeting last Wednesday, Adam Doo, a representative for Tommy Waters’ office, said that staff of the Department of Health conducted an inspection earlier in the month, and that a clean-up crew ordered by the property owners, was tentatively scheduled to tidy the property within a few days. 

According to neighboring business owners, the small crew arrived at the site last week. While they were attempting to clean, the roof collapsed, the sound reverberating into surrounding properties, leaving the back of the restaurant completely vulnerable to rain.

SIS Ventures LLC, the owner of the 91-year-old building, is registered to Lynn and Cynthia Kajioka, co-trustees of an entity called the Kajioka Joint Trust. The business is not in good standing with the state of Hawaiʻi because it failed to submit an annual filing this year, according to the state’s business registration website. 

When reached at her residence, Lynn Kajioka said that they “know the smell, and we’ve been hounding people.” She said the issue is “stuck in insurance.”

Kajioka confirmed that they had ordered the cleaning crew to enter the property last week, but are now “renegotiating.”

“We’re asking the [cleaning contractors] every day practically, what’s the status?” She declined to elaborate further.

Davis Pitner, spokesperson for the Honolulu Department of Permitting and Planning, said the clean-up cannot be conducted because the building, with its caved-in ceiling and tilting wall, is unsafe to enter. He said that it’s on the property owner, not the restaurant owner, to “determine the extent of repairs that need to be made,” or whether to demolish the building altogether.

“They are working with their insurer and contractor to determine the best path forward in terms of repairing the property as well as cleaning the property,” he said.

Attempts to reach Lisa Ng-Lum, a tenant of the property and owner of Happy Days, by phone, email and in person were unsuccessful.

Stench Is Hurting Business  

Lacey Mendoca, a server at Koko Head Cafe in Kaimukī, said her family frequented Happy Days for years. Now, she said, “the smell makes me gag.” 

“I understand safety-wise, they can’t get in,” she said. “But something has to be done.” 

She said that in addition to the cooked food that can be seen from the front window, she believes she is detecting the “absolutely foul” smell coming from uncooked raw meat, stored in the back kitchen, closer to where she lives. Mendoca also mentioned the restaurant had live Arowana fish swimming in tanks, and wondered what had become of them. 

Local businesses are also being affected by the stench. 

Kylie Umebayashi, a hair stylist at Oasis Salon located on the second floor of a building tucked behind Happy Days, styles her clients’ hair in a chair with a direct view of the restaurant kitchen out her window. 

In the weeks following the ceiling collapse, and as the smell became stronger, she saw flies circling the upstairs kitchen window. She said that she is concerned about rodents and maggots spilling out to nearby stores, and that if nobody is going to take action, give me “a hazmat suit and I’ll be in there to clean up the food myself!” 

With air conditioning in the salon, she doesn’t have to breathe in the spoiled aroma during her work day, but customers are still concerned. Although Umebayashi cannot attribute it to a single cause, she said that all three stylists at the salon including herself, had their slowest month yet. 

One client, in an Instagram DM reviewed by Civil Beat, texted Umebayashi, “I was gonna book [a hair appointment] but I’m super sensitive to smell.” 

“There is a level of danger with going in there, but it’s the same thing as somebody joining our military,” Umebeyashi said, adding, “somebody [has to be] willing to go in there to clean the restaurant out because you can’t just let all that food rot.” 

Health Department Is Hands Off  

Kristen Wong, spokesperson for the Department of Health wrote in a statement that they are “working to ensure that the responsible party resolves the issues as soon as possible,” referring to the property owners.

They said the state is not responsible for the restaurant since it is closed. Only when the site is safe to access can officials begin to address “the complaints associated with the abandoned food since it is causing harborage for rodents.”

The health department gave a similar response to the owner of Oasis Salon, according to an email reviewed by Civil Beat.

“We only have jurisdiction over establishments with permits with us, and since Happy Days is closed, they would not be violating our rules,” state food safety specialist Landan Taketa wrote to salon owner Sarah Pommerenk.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Kaimukī Community Park, which is adjacent to Happy Days and is usually filled with kūpuna playing pickleball and keiki running around, remained empty. 

“It’s out of sight out of mind for those it doesn’t affect,” said Mendoca, the neighbor who described the smell as “absolutely foul.” 

“We can only hope and pray,” she continued, “that someone will do something.”