Power restored to Chinatown sparks evening rush

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Good food, good drink, good friends. All part of what makes Chinatown so special.

And tonight small pockets of Chinatown managed to ramp up and push dishes out in a matter of hours.

“We’ve been waiting for this moment all week,” said Fabrice McCarthy of FETE.

McCarthy said when power was finally restored the entire staff was energized, and by 6 p.m. Fete was already packed.

“We opened up our reservations,” McCarthy continued. “We have a lot of regulars supporting us and then lotta traffic in the neighborhood soon as some of our neighbors haven’t managed to get open quite yet.”

“I wanted to meet my good friend Paula and we were walking downtown and we happen to walk by and see that it was open,” said Shilpa Patel, FETE customer. “We love this place and so we came and sat down.”

Paula Arias, another FETE customer added, “Can you appreciate the amount of work and stress these people have gone through to put this meal in front of you? I can’t imagine whether they was with the electricity coming on and off and having to save food and see what they could keep so I’m very very grateful for this meal.”

Just down the road Murphy’s Bar and Grill was also one of the last 600 customers to have power restored, but Murph said opening the same night would’ve been too much.

“We’ve got probably about 10 coolers large the big coolers with product in their ice down so in the morning we had to come in and go through those and see what still good and what isn’t,” said Don Murphy of Murphy’s Bar and Grill.

And with the power back on, you could see Chinatown coming to life right before your eyes.

Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news

People in the sidewalks, walk-ins looking for a place to eat and food being delivered to multiple restaurants in anticipation of what is expected to be a huge aloha Friday and weekend.