North Shore NewsCirca 1904 – 66-111 Kamehameha Hwy
This wood frame building built on Bishop Estate property originally housed a tailor shop and dry goods store for Sego and Tayo Tanaka, immigrants from Shikoku, Japan. When they returned to Japan in the early 1920s, their son Kazuaki and his wife Shizuko took over the dry goods store known as the K. Tanaka Store. In the 1940s, Masakazu Tanaka operated the store until Kazuaki Tanaka sold the business to Mamoru and Helen Matsumoto in 1951.
The Matsumotos began selling shave ice in their grocery store in 1956. Known as kakigori in Japan, it was brought to Hawaii by early Japanese immigrants. First offered with a choice of homemade syrups and sweet azuki beans, Matsumoto shave ice eventually made the store internationally famous. Stanley Matsumoto took over the store from his parents in 1976, and with his wife Noriko and daughter Remy, built the Matsumoto Store into one of Haleiwa’s most legendary, multi-generational family businesses. (Plaque Language)