You are a Maui old-timer if you remember filling your opu at:
* Aloha Restaurant on Puunene Avenue in Kahului. During the 1960s and 1970s, the restaurant was a favorite of those wanting authentic Hawaiian food and beer. Its liquor store led the island in Budweiser sales by the case.
* Port Town Delicatessen. Oriental food served on the Wailuku side of the Kahului Shopping Center, which also featured Harold's Inn built around a monkeypod tree.
* Two Kahului Shopping Center drug stores. Craft's Drug Store was known for its daily hot-lunch specials. Toda Drugs had a two-hoop fountain. One side was informally reserved for a select crowd of businessmen. Mae McCarter upset the old boys when she sat down on "their" side.
* The A&W Drive In. Cupie Yoshigawa opened it after running the Maui Pineapple Co. cafeteria at the cannery. It's still in business as Cupie's next to the Chevron station at the corner of Lono and Kamehameha avenues.
* The Frontier, later named The Landing, then the Chart House and now Carrie & Eddie's Hideaway. It sits on the beach at Kahului Harbor. Built by Edwin Wasano. In the 1970s, the Maui Chamber of Commerce held lunch meetings in a railroad car annex to the restaurant. The Landing was one of many restaurants run by Webb Beggs - Aloha Bowl, Whale's Tail in Lahaina and Gate 21 at the Kahului Airport.
* The Wailuku Grand Hotel at the corner of Main and Church streets in Wailuku. Mayor Eddie Tam and The Maui News Managing Editor Ezra Crane got together there almost daily to play cards.
* The Wailuku Hotel just up Main Street. It had a huge garden bar and was famous for holiday dinners and banquets.
* Shirley's at the corner of Main and Market. Great breakfasts. Later it became Carlene's where a baker was then Public Defender Joel August. Down Market Street there was the Turtle Back Bar. Separate buildings for the bar, kitchen and lua. Very local breakfasts benefitted from liberal doses of tabasco.
* Tokyo Tei across from the Wailuku Fire Station. It was a combination restaurant and nightclub that at one time featured strippers from Japan. Great tempura. It burned down and was moved to the parking-lot level of the Puuone Building on Lower Main.
* Naokee's Steak House in the shadow of the bridge leading into Wailuku. Popular bar on one side, restaurant on the other. No matter what you ordered there was always kim chee on your plate. Today, Vietnamese food is the draw at the now Saigon Cafe.
* The Iao Valley Lodge below Kepaniwai Park. It was also a nightclub, featuring dancing.
* The Golden Jade, Maui Drugstore, City Mart, Sweet Shoppe, Omura's Sundries, Happy Valley Tavern and the Ling Wo Restaurant. All on mauka side of Market Street. The makai side of Market Street was home for Takeyama Restaurant and the Ling Wo Chinese restaurant on the second floor above the Mabuhay Barber Shop.
* House of Ah Sui Dang, a Chinese restaurant next to where the Wailuku Bank of Hawaii stands.
* The Kula Lodge when it was run by Frank James. It had a "serve yourself bar," according to one of the era's heavy drinkers. In the 1970s, the lodge hosted an annual Halloween costume party and rock 'n' roll bands. Popular with musicians and young people; not so much with neighbors.
* A party catered by Patsy Kinoshita in Paia. Old style heavy pupu, special recipes for large, plantation parties in the 1950s.
* Kurasaki's. Begun in Paia, it was moved to above Aloha Bowl then to the Maui Palms. Reasonable prices for family meals and steaks.
* Club Rodeo. Sub Molina ran the place. Prime rib was a big draw. Flip the plates and you'd see U.S. Navy printed on the bottoms. That was only appropriate since the building in Makawao was turned into a USO club during the war by Ethel Baldwin.
* Iwaishi Store & Fountain in Makawao. The place later became a Jon Applegate restaurant and still later the Makawao Steak House. Applegate also built and operated the Gnu Haven when The Queen Ka'ahumanu Center first opened.
* Bullocks of Hawaii in Pukalani. Paul and Hazel Elkins ran the place. Lousy coffee but the "everyone knows your name" ambiance made it popular. Local traffic dried up when the Haleakala bypass was built. A lack of signal lights meant customers from points east had to go through "chance 'em pass."
* Fuku's Place opposite Kalama Park in Kihei. In the 1950s, it was at the end of the paved road. Frank Sinatra and Spencer Tracy hung out there during the filming of "Twilight of the Gods."
* Notable west side eateries. They included Pineapple Hill in the old David Fleming home at Kapalua, the Banyan Inn restaurant and Web Beggs' Lahaina Broiler.
Mahalo nui loa for the list to Bob Jones, an old-time advertising and promotion guru for The Maui News.
* Ron Youngblood is a former staff writer for The Maui News. His email address is maluhia@maui.net.
