Kyle Kawakami
Photo: Kyle Kawakami
Photographer: Cadencia Photography
“I realized that people were scared… There's no reason to be ashamed of saying, ‘Hey, I'm scared of what's going on.’”
Kyle Kawakami of Maui Fresh Streatery is a business pioneer on the island of Maui. This has been especially evident during the response to COVID-19; Maui Fresh Streatery was one of the first food service businesses to implement safety measures to prevent the spread of disease… complete with mango picker (details below). In addition to this, Kyle and the food truck have evolved into a kind of community hub: A place where fisherman are able to sell or donate fish, where farmers are able to distribute their CSA boxes, and where he has been providing hundreds of free meals to Kupuna and Keiki each week with the help of the community. We caught up with Kyle as he was wrapping up a busy morning of coordinating the distribution of meals for Kupuna.
First off, how are you?
Photo: Kyle Kawakami
Photographer: Cadencia Photography
We're fortunate that we've gotten a schedule down. It is pretty exhausting, but as long as I follow that schedule I'm pretty okay. I've pared back what we're doing, so I am only open one day a week now for the business side. That allows me to open up the weekend and a few extra… sorry, somebody's ringing the doorbell. Be right back. (Kyle proceeded to coordinate the delivery of approximately 100 meals prepared by him, to be distributed to those in need.) I'm back. Sorry.
What changes have you made in your business/lifestyle/platform to adapt to our current situation?
It's pretty dynamic and fluid. In this situation, it changes daily. I've always looked at the food truck not just as a livelihood and a way to sell food, but if there's ever a hurricane or a tsunami, I have a big red disaster response vehicle that's ready to go. We used it when the Lahaina fires broke out a few years ago and when we had the federal government shutdown. It’s always in my head: How can the business and the vehicle itself be best utilized to support and assist in the community?
“It’s always in my head: How can the business and the vehicle itself be best utilized to support and assist in the community?”
When things started and the dominoes started to fall, I wasn't even scheduled to open. I was ready to close down, because I was scheduled to fly out for a snowboarding trip with the whole family. We pulled the plug 24 hours before leaving. Within 48 hours, things were closing and it was getting real serious. I looked at the situation and went, “We might as well start to mobilize.” I took that week off to watch things and see how safe it would be. That was my biggest concern from the start. I really wanted to make sure I was safe and my family was safe, which in turn keeps my customers safe.
Photo: Kyle Kawakami
Photographer: Cadencia Photography
Right from the beginning we changed our service style. Instead of people parking their cars, getting in line, ordering food, and waiting for food, we automatically changed to a meal prep type of service. So the food is cooked, it's packaged, garnished, chilled, labeled, and everything is set up to take it home. So the contact time between each customer is under a minute, and that was very important.
After week two, it started getting a little bit more serious and there was the outbreak at the hospital. I felt like I didn’t want to walk up to people's cars. That’s when we implemented the mango picker. It’s 10 feet away, we take their credit card, and I wipe the cards down. Then we spray the picker down and wipe the table. There is a multi-step process looking at where there's a potential for contamination.
Photo: Kyle Kawakami
Photographer: Cadencia Photography
Once the hotels closed and emptied out their refrigerators, we shifted gears and looked at our connections within the food community. The first one was Ryan at Oko’a Farms. I told them, “Let me know what you sell the boxes for, and we'll sell it for you. I don't care about making a profit, we'll just move your product for you.” It’s trying to help out the people you work with and at the same time, it's mutually beneficial. I'm wanting to ensure that these farmers and fishermen don't fold, because if they fold then we lose important food. I’m ensuring that that supply chain continues to operate.
From your experience, do you feel like there would be momentum and influence enough to change the way we are doing things moving forward?
I would hope so. We see so many executive chefs out of work, unemployed, laid off, they’ve quit and are thinking about new career paths. I don't know what is going to come out on the other end, but those of us that are still left, I would hope that we start looking at what we have on island, because there's a lot here.
This is devastating, what has happened to our economy. It's sad for anybody that has somebody that has passed away or gotten sick. But I have heard multiple people say that this is our reset button. We've taken the pause, [especially from] tourism. I hope people use these last six, eight weeks to reevaluate what we have here, how we're going about our daily business, and seeing if we can make changes.
“I have heard multiple people say that this is our reset button. We've taken the pause, [especially] from tourism.”
What is your vision for the future? Are there changes occurring now that you want to see remain in place once COVID-19 is over?
Photo: Kyle Kawakami
Photographer: Cadencia Photography
Regarding sourcing, we don't have everything we need grown or produced here on Maui, and that's okay. For the restaurant aspect, we have to be honest: It will never be 100% sustainable on Maui. We can't fool ourselves. But we do have a lot here that people can be creative with, and that can change the way our restaurants are operating. People are realizing how important small farms are. This is now the eye-opener.
I think supporting local cottage industries is number one thing. Keep the money here. If you're going to spend money, spend it here, spend it local, spend it on small businesses. Making this time has allowed us to stop our busy lives and think about what we're doing and whether we want to go back or not. It’s a personal choice. This might be the time to say, “Hey, let's do things differently.” Hopefully we have enough community-based people out there that are willing to.
As a community we have to rally both sides. We've got to come together. We're all working. We're all on a single island. We cannot tear each other apart. We're on one boat in the middle of the Pacific.
We have one woman that comes every week. She buys a dinner for herself, and I give her 10 to 15 meals that she takes out the homeless. The way I look at it is, if people are fed and not hungry then our community can continue to work towards a better future.
But as soon as the food chain breaks down, that is when people are pushed to the extreme. If my phone bill got shut off today, oh well. If I lost my cable bill, okay, that’s kind of sad. But if you start to see your children go hungry, or your grandpa, grandma, and parents, that's the tipping point that I don't want to get to.
“The way I look at it, if people are fed and not hungry, then our community can continue to work towards a better future.”
How do you see this crisis being described in the history books of the future?
Photo: Kyle Kawakami
Photographer: Cadencia Photography
That is a tough question. I don't think we can say, I don't think we can answer that yet. We are at a tipping point. It could go either way. It could just be another pandemic where we go back to normal, back to the big picture of global warming and not having enough food and so on... Or we tip the scales in the other direction and say, “Now was the time that we made a change. It was a big enough reason globally to make that change.”
I can feed people within our community that are not working, that are not getting paid, that are our neighbors.
For me, my goal is to keep our community together. To keep Maui together.
“For me, my goal is to keep our community together. To keep Maui together.”
Who are your food heroes?
Jose Andres. He is a chef out of Spain. He runs some of the best restaurants in the nation. He runs World Central Kitchen. They mobilized after the hurricane in Puerto Rico.
He has been able to mobilize restaurant people and use his influence to get governments to pay restaurants to open up and serve food. They choose a restaurant to serve 200-250 meals a day and be a hub of sorts. It's not going to be or as high-end is what you were making previously, but it's guaranteed for you, your staff, and suppliers. No contact, nobody eating in, but the restaurant takes care of preparing the meals, boxing them up, and the government (or other organization) pays for the meals to keep it all running.
What do you want the community to know in order to help?
Simple things. If I have $10 to spend, am I going to spend it at McDonald's, or am I going to go spend it at a local restaurant? If I need tomatoes, can I go up to Kumu Farms and get it from their stand, or am I going to go to Costco?
Some of the stories are pretty crazy. I had a call from one 85 year old gentleman who contacted us through Facebook, because he needed food. I put him in contact with one of my outreach folks and they went to the house. There were five seniors living in the house and they had been eating canned corn and canned refried beans for two weeks.
It’s tough. These guys that are doing outreach, I bless them, because they're not just going and dropping off a package at the door. The outreach [people] that we work with invest a lot of time. One of them will spend the entire day with 30 people, sitting on the porch, singing songs together, because a lot of these elderly are alone by themselves. That's their one connection with somebody else all week. It’s not just physical health with food, but mental health.
Photo: Kyle Kawakami
Photographer: Cadencia Photography