How Liliha Bakery Grew From a Tiny Liliha Street Shop Into Six Coco Puff Counters

If you grew up on Oʻahu, you probably have a Liliha Bakery memory: a box of coco puffs on the table at a family party, a chantilly cake for a birthday, or hotcakes at the old diner counter on Kuakini Street. The bakery has been around since 1950, and in 2026 it is bigger than ever. Its sixth Oʻahu location opened at Waikīkī Beach Walk in July, and that branch added a prime rib happy hour this fall.

Here’s how a small neighborhood bakery became one of the island’s best-known names in local sweets. This profile is drawn from published sources; we did not interview the owners.

A bread baker goes out on his own

The bakery’s story starts with Roy and Koo Takakuwa. Roy had been baking bread for a wholesaler but wanted more from his career, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported for the bakery’s 50th anniversary in 2000. In 1950 the couple opened a tiny shop at 1703 Liliha St. to sell their baked goods.

In 1961 the Takakuwas moved around the corner to Kuakini Street and kept the Liliha name, which is why the “original Liliha” isn’t actually on Liliha Street. Roy ran the company until he died in 1985. Koo handled the finances until she retired in the early 1990s, according to the Star-Bulletin.

Chantilly came first

Today the coco puff is the name everyone knows, but it wasn’t the bakery’s first hit. The Star-Bulletin reported in 2000 that Liliha’s first claim to fame was its chantilly cake, a chocolate cake with a rich buttercream frosting, which dates to the 1950s. William Takakuwa, then company president, told the paper the chantilly topping was basically German chocolate cake frosting without the nuts and coconut, and with a lot more butter. “My father was a big fan of butter,” he said.

The coco puff flopped first

The coco puff’s history is the bakery’s best story. A small chocolate cream puff debuted at Liliha around 1970, the idea of the chief baker at the time, William Takakuwa told the Star-Bulletin. It was, in his words, “a fantastic flop.”

Around 1990, a later chief baker, Kame Ikemura, revived the recipe, reworked it and added a dab of chantilly frosting on top. That version took off. By 2000, the paper reported, the one-store bakery was selling 250 to 300 dozen coco puffs a day at 85 cents apiece, and up to 500 dozen on busy days. The bakery had about 70 employees then.

Not every experiment worked. Takakuwa told the paper his father once brought home a sourdough recipe from a bakers’ convention in the 1950s. He dropped it after a customer complained the bread tasted sour and old.

The counter that never closed

Liliha Bakery has always been more than a bakery case. Its full name is Liliha Bakery & Coffee Shop, and the old-style diner counter at the Kuakini store has its own fans. A 2007 Honolulu Advertiser review described an 18-seat counter that stayed open 24 hours from Tuesday morning through Sunday night, serving fluffy homemade hotcakes, hamburger steak, beef stew and butter rolls with bright pink jelly. HONOLULU Magazine’s Best of Honolulu food list also named Liliha’s hotcakes the best pancakes in town.

The Kuakini store was still running around the clock in 2020, closed only from 8 p.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Tuesday, the Star-Advertiser reported. Today, the bakery’s website lists the original store’s hours as 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

A new owner in 2008

In April 2008, after nearly six decades, the Takakuwa family sold the bakery to Honolulu entrepreneur Peter Kim, who founded the Yummy Restaurant Group (known for Yummy Korean B-B-Q) in 1986. Terms weren’t disclosed, the Star-Bulletin reported. Fred Takakuwa, the former president, had started in his parents’ business at age 13. He told the paper it was time to find a buyer because he and his five siblings were nearing retirement. At the time of the sale, the bakery was selling about 3,600 coco puffs a day at $1.05 each.

Kim announced plans to open more Liliha Bakeries on Oʻahu and the Neighbor Islands, the Advertiser reported. In a 2015 HONOLULU Magazine neighborhood column, the writer, who grew up biking to the bakery, joked about the “shock” when the new owner installed a second cash register at the famously unchanging shop.

From one counter to six

The expansion came slowly. According to the bakery, a second location opened on Nimitz Highway in 2014, followed by Ala Moana Center in March 2019, International Market Place in Waikīkī in November 2021 and Pearl Highlands Center in August 2022. Along the way, the menu got another hit: poi mochi doughnuts, introduced in 2016, had “moved up quickly in popularity” by the bakery’s 70th anniversary in 2020, the Star-Advertiser wrote.

The sixth location opened July 17, 2026, on the second level of Waikīkī Beach Walk. Aloha State Daily described it as a 6,000-square-foot restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating and a bar menu. The bakery case there carries coco puffs ($3.75), matcha coco puffs ($3.95), poi mochi doughnuts ($3.49) and newer items like kouign amann and Dubai chocolate brownies.

That Beach Walk branch now has a happy hour of its own, daily from 3 to 6 p.m., Aloha State Daily reported in October. It includes a 16-ounce prime rib for $38.50 (usually $48.95), prime rib with lobster tail for $48.50 and 50% off beer and cocktails, including $8 mai tais.

What hasn’t changed

The bakery says its bakers still make everything from scratch with traditional methods, some of them with up to 40 years at Liliha, and that it offers more than 150 baked goods. Custom airbrushed cakes are made at the original Kuakini store and at Pearl City. The counter seating still gives diners a look at their food being made, the bakery says.

Know before you go

Original: 515 N. Kuakini St., Honolulu; 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily; (808) 531-1651
Nimitz: 580 N. Nimitz Hwy.; 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily
Ala Moana: Macy’s, third floor, Ala Moana Center
Waikīkī: International Market Place, third floor, and Waikīkī Beach Walk, second floor (226 Lewers St.)
Pearl City: Pearl Highlands Center, 1000 Kamehameha Hwy.
Seating: Walk-in only, per the bakery’s website. Order custom cakes and pickups at lilihabakery.com.
Hours are from the bakery’s locations page (checked Nov. 11, 2026). Hours vary by store, so check before you go.

For more of Oʻahu’s long-running family food businesses, read our profiles of Fukuya Deli and Rainbow Drive-In.

Sources

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, “Liliha Bakery celebrates 50 years in business — and the success of its signature pastry, the Coco Puff” by Betty Shimabukuro (Aug. 2, 2000): https://archives.starbulletin.com/2000/08/02/features/story1.html
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, “Bake sale: Famed Liliha eatery has new owner” (April 4, 2008): https://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/04/04/news/story08.html
The Honolulu Advertiser, “Hawaii’s mom-and-pops look to future” (April 27, 2008): https://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2008/Apr/27/bz/hawaii804270327.html
The Honolulu Advertiser, “Liliha Bakery offers more than just coco puffs” (July 6, 2007): http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Jul/06/en/FP707060318.html
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, “Quickbites: Liliha Bakery celebrates 70 years …” (Jan. 21, 2020): https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/01/21/food/quickbites/quickbites-liliha-bakery-celebrates-70-years-viaggio-introduces-new-chef-the-pearl-reopens-at-lcc/
HONOLULU Magazine, “Our hood: Liliha” (Oct. 2015): https://www.honolulumagazine.com/our-hood-liliha/
HONOLULU Magazine, “Best of Honolulu – Food” (Best Pancakes: Liliha Bakery): https://www.honolulumagazine.com/best-of-honolulu-food/
Aloha State Daily, “First look at Liliha Bakery’s new Waikīkī restaurant” by Kelli Shiroma Braiotta (July 15, 2026): https://alohastatedaily.com/2026/07/15/liliha-bakery-is-opening-its-second-waikiki-restaurant/
Aloha State Daily, “Liliha Bakery’s new happy hour includes prime rib” by Kelli Shiroma Braiotta (Oct. 20, 2026): https://alohastatedaily.com/2026/10/19/liliha-bakerys-happy-hour-includes-prime-rib/
Liliha Bakery, “Our Story” and “Locations & Hours” (checked Nov. 11, 2026): https://www.lilihabakery.com/our-story and https://www.lilihabakery.com/locations