Leyson Sakai had been selling ice shave and crack seed at Wilson’s By the Bay on Kamehameha Avenue since 1997. Then one day in March, it was all gone.
The store had become a welcome fixture for fans of local-style treats, but the new landlord raised her rent — “crazy kine,” Sakai said. “It was really a sudden, unexpected move.”
Disappointed, Sakai closed Wilson’s By the Bay on March 14 while looking for a new location. She soon found the former Kaya’s Cutlery shop at 141 Mamo St. vacant. It needs some renovation, but Sakai is expecting to be back in business in two or three weeks.
That would be good timing since she’s expecting her seventh child a few weeks after that, and she doesn’t look forward to moving and birthing at the same time. Sakai knows a little about the latter. She has given birth to all of her children since 1997 when she became full-time proprietor of Wilson’s By the Bay.
A 1995 Hilo High grad, Sakai can’t wait to get back in business, since it keeps her feeling young.
“I enjoyed doing it. It was a lot of fun. You feel like a little kid again. You get ice shave, the little kid in you just comes out,” she said.
Not long after graduating high school, Sakai helped some friends restart the original Wilson’s when it was on Kaumana Drive, near Chong Street, where Crivello’s Place is now.
The original Wilson’s was a general store in the 1950s that had closed, Sakai explained. She and some friends moved into the house next door and became interested in the possibilities for the store, then vacant. Sakai contacted her Oahu friends, Mark and Missy Sato, who moved to Hilo to start Wilson’s Ice Shave there in 1995.
They sought permission to use the name from the original owners, the Wilsons, and Sakai helped her friends in the business until early 1997. “Then they opened downtown in April ’97,” she said. “I was the helper when it opened.”
Sakai acquired the business later that year when the Satos decided to move back to Oahu and start a family there.
“I kept (the store) the same,” Sakai said. “Missy developed the syrups and taught me how.” All of the syrup flavors continue to be homemade, she said. The biggest difference may be that the new store will have only about 300 square feet, about half the size of the former Kamehameha Avenue location. “It will work out,” she said, with an easy sense of optimism.
The shop became such an important part of her life that Sakai hopes it will be a lasting legacy for her children, a “landmark for a generation,” she said. In the meantime, she can use her growing brood for some help in the store.
A supportive husband with a successful flower farm, Rainbow Country Orchids, helps, too. David Sakai often brings in orchids straight from the farm for sale in the shop alongside the crack seed and other local treats. But “ice shave is the main thing,” Sakai said.
Her ice shave secret? “It’s the aloha we put into it,” she said, not to mention the hand-crafted flavors and keeping the ice “fluffy.”
Sakai has been taking special orders at 969-9191 while awaiting the new store location to be ready. When that happens, they’ll be open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. or whenever pau, according to local custom.
“I’m hoping (to be back in business) within a couple of weeks,” she said. “I just want to share aloha again.”
