Rotating Pop-Up Vendors at Fishcake Hook Us With New Delights
The test café in the furniture and decor showroom lets micro food businesses showcase their craft.
Nami Box’s lunches. Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino
Laotian crispy rice salad on a Tuesday, gluten-free tempura on a Friday, birria tacos on a Sunday. Not only do the menus at Fishcake’s test café change daily, so do the vendors. The idea evolved in tandem with the slew of microbusinesses populating what started out as a showroom for furnishings and accessories. Sixteen years later, Fishcake is still that—only now, as its website sums up, it’s also “a ceramic studio, hair salon, art school, flower shop, tattoo studio and a test café.”
It’s that last bit that’s been drawing foodies for several years. Understandably: In this part of Kaka‘ako, one block from Ward Avenue on a dusty stretch between Halekauwila and Auahi streets, food options are scarce. The showroom carved out a café space that for years housed an extension of Mānoa’s Morning Glass Coffee. When that closed, says Fishcake showroom manager Janis Lee, “we started thinking about what we wanted to eat for lunch.”
Nami Box treats. Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino
Now, tiny food businesses cycle through the space six days a week. Some days, there are two. Fridays, for instance, you might find Nami Box’s gluten-free Japanese lunches alongside sourdough boules and pineapple ricotta buns by Bread Service. The schedule is fluid. C4 Table, the café’s longtime Wednesday vendor of upscale, locally sourced plates, took a hiatus last fall while chef-owner Colin Hazama worked his other gig as executive chef of the Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival.
FAST FACT: Beyond Pastry Studio, known for its epicurean cheesecakes and contemporary Filipino-inspired pastries, graduated from Fishcake’s incubator to open its Downtown bakery.
And that’s another draw: The food offerings reflect passion and craft. Hazama trained under Alan Wong, Roy Yamaguchi and San Francisco’s Gary Danko. Bread Service baker-owner Kathryn Overton made desserts at Yauatcha and was executive chef at Honolulu Coffee Co. Chillest Shave Ice is the former ‘Ailana Shave Ice, an OG local purveyor of Japanese kakigori with fresh fruit and other housemade syrups. Ryne Shimabukuro serves up his handmade udon on Saturdays.
The list goes on—check Fishcake’s website or Instagram for the latest.
Test café open Tuesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., 307c Kamani St., fishcake.us, @fishcakehawaii
