20 minutes up the hill from Kailua on the Big Island of Hawaii is the sleepy little town of Kainaliu. As you drive into town you feel like you’ve entered a time warp of old buildings from an earlier era.  Kainaliu is over 1300′ in elevation and features beautiful views of the blue ocean below. It is here I came across “Kimura’s Fabrics”, a fabric store featuring a vast array of colorful fabrics for apparel and the home. I spent almost my whole career in decorative fabrics so obviously I was intrigued by this quaint store.

“Kimura’s Fabrics” began as a general merchandise store in 1926 by Kinshichi Kimura, who came to Hawaii from Japan in 1896. His children took over the business in 1939 and started carrying fabrics in the late 1950’s. The business is run today by Kinschichi Kimura’s grandchildren, Winnie and Brian. Retail businesses almost everywhere have seen challenging times and fabrics for sewing especially so! Most young people don’t know how to sew and schools don’t teach it anymore. Customers still wander in and marvel at their selection. For many, this is a special destination. There still are home sewers and quilters who cherish “Kimura’s Fabrics”. And who knows, hopefully new homesewers and the “ETSY” generation will rediscover home sewing for crafts, quilting, apparel and home furnishing!

We always try to support local merchants on all our travels. Down the block from “Kimura’s Fabrics” is “Oshima Store” for groceries (founded in 1926) and “Oshima Surf and Skate”.  Oshima Surf has 4 Big Island locations, but this is my favorite and has an amazing selection of swim shorts and flip-flops.

The “Aloha Theatre” began as a silent movie theatre in 1932 and is used today for plays and performing arts.

The side of the theatre and the ocean far below.

I love bakeries so I popped into the “Standard Bakery”, a Kainaliu treasure since 1940 featuring local products such as Chantilly cakes and rolls, Anpan (Japanese sweet roll), cream Snails, cookies, donuts and pies. They sell bentos (a single portion Japanese meal), musubi (spam with rice wrapped in seaweed), curry and tripe stews, hamburger and teriyaki burgers, Korean chicken and loco moco (Hawaiian meal). They are also known to have best malasadas (sweet fried dough of Portuguese origin) and donuts on the island! The biggest part of their business now is wholesale providing products for island stores. This is called adaptation and innovation for survival.

The road up the hill to Kainaliu is a beautiful drive. The climate is cooler up here and it is lush with tropical foliage. There are numerous coffee plantations at this altitude. “Ah, Kona coffee!”

On the subject of home sewing, here are two vintage sewing machine posters from the 1900’s. Marla and I carried vintage posters in our Wesco Fabrics’ Denver showroom for many years.

PHOTOS: Dick Gentry, Hawaiianbusiness.com, Oshima Store