A parking lot on South King Street is about to fill up with folding tables, waffle irons, and the smell of grilled hot dogs this Sunday. Da Ohana Kine Snack Shop is hosting a local market on September 13, bringing together local businesses, vendors, entertainers, and families for a free day of shopping and live music in the Mōʻiliʻili neighborhood.
The event runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 2065 South King Street, the Honolulu snack shop's home address, according to KHON2. Roughly 20 local vendors are expected to set up shop, selling everything from Hawaiian crafts to Hello Kitty merchandise and Pokémon collectibles. Food offerings will range from assorted bentos and Filipino pig feet soup to baked goodies and a newly introduced item called pizza waffles.
But the headliner, for many longtime locals, will be the KC Waffle Dog. The waffle-wrapped hot dog traces its roots to KC Drive Inn, the beloved Kapahulu institution that served up the dish for 70 years before closing in March 2005. Third-generation owner Dayton Asato kept the recipe and its companion Ono Ono Shake alive afterward through pop-up appearances and retail partnerships, a piece of culinary history documented by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin at the time of the closure.
Who's Running the Show at 2065 South King Street
Da Ohana Kine Snack Shop occupies Suite 103 of the building, where owner Laverne Villanueva serves homestyle local meals alongside the traditional KC waffle dogs and shakes, according to Tiny TV Hawaii. Rodney Villanueva will serve as MC for Sunday's gathering, per KHON2's report. This isn't the shop's first rodeo organizing a neighborhood pop-up — the same outlet notes that Da Ohana Kine hosted a Mother's Day Fun Fair back on April 11, drawing about 20 craft and food vendors along with live entertainment in the same South King Street lot.
Live music will run throughout the day, starting with Tevita Hikariyana at 10 a.m., followed by The Groove Band at 11:30 a.m., and closing out with Rolando Sanchez & Da Band at 1 p.m. Sanchez is a veteran Hawaii-based Latin music recording artist and percussionist known for salsa, Latin jazz, and Carlos Santana tribute sets, and his group regularly headlines venues across Oahu including Blue Note Hawaii, according to Wanderlog.
A Historic Building With Neighborhood Roots
The market's host site, known as the Safety Loan Building, is a three-story, 17,556-square-foot commercial storefront built in 1964, according to Showcase.com. The property also houses Paradise Leis, a walk-in retail florist and wholesaler offering handcrafted orchid, crown flower, and ti leaf leis out of Suites 101 and 102, per the florist's own site listing. That mix of small, family-run tenants fits neatly into Mōʻiliʻili's identity as a neighborhood that evolved from taro fields and early Japanese immigrant settlement into a dense corridor of legacy shops, as described by The Washington Post in 2019.
Sunday's market also arrives amid a broader wave of pop-up mākeke gatherings across Oahu, where small business owners increasingly use parking lots and storefront lots as low-overhead sales platforms. Hoodline reported that the Best of Hawaii Mākeke drew 250 local vendors to the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall last month, part of a trend that lets local bakers, artisans, and food makers reach customers without the burden of permanent retail leases.
Safety Along a Busy Corridor
South King Street sits within a commercial district that has drawn heightened attention to pedestrian safety in recent weeks. State transportation figures show Hawaii recorded 58 traffic fatalities statewide between January 1 and September 2, including 25 on Oahu, underscoring safety considerations along high-density arterials where street-adjacent community markets like this one take place. The concern is not abstract for Mōʻiliʻili — Hoodline previously reported on a motorcycle striking a 22-year-old pedestrian at a nearby crosswalk in the same corridor.
For now, though, the focus on South King Street this weekend is squarely on community. Between the vendor tables, the live sets, and the return of a dish tied to one of Oahu's most fondly remembered drive-ins, Da Ohana Kine Snack Shop is betting that nostalgia and neighborhood pride can pull families off the sidewalk and into the lot for an afternoon.
