Suisan Co. Ltd. celebrated its 110th anniversary in business Thursday with a lunchtime extravaganza at its iconic retail fish market on Hilo’s Waiakea Peninsula.
Hundreds flocked to the celebration. Drivers snarled traffic on Lihiwai Street and Banyan Drive trying to find an open parking spot, while patrons packed the concrete deck where fish auctioneers once provided the soundtrack to Hilo’s trademark sunrises.
Outside, three Hilo restaurants served onolicious seafood samples made from a variety of Suisan’s products. Seaside Restaurant featured a fresh, slightly spicy and delightfully acidic hamachi poke with sweet onions. Cousins Seafood &Bento plated their “poke bombs” — envision a poke-sushi hybrid as street food, finely chopped tuna topped with roe and neatly packaged in aburage, the deep-fried tofu wrapper used in cone sushi. And Ponds Hilo pleased the palate with a succulent salmon appetizer drizzled with a light but savory sauce that packed an umami punch.
There also was a serpentine line of patrons waiting their turn to enter the fish market and purchase five poke varieties created for the event by Sheldon Simeon, the Hilo-born chef who was twice a finalist on the Bravo TV cooking competition “Top Chef.” The 35-year-old Simeon and his wife, Janice, own and operate Tin Roof, a local-style lunch shop in Kahului, Maui, that puts an upscale twist on plate lunch and poke bowl fare.
“To me, this is home,” Simeon said. “I think anybody who was born and raised in Hilo has some type of memory connected with Suisan, whether it was coming down to the auction like I did with my dad on the weekends, or getting poke for their graduation party, or coming down here and fishing at the docks at Suisan. It’s definitely a core piece to Hilo.”
Simeon’s dad, Reinior, who brought the young chef-to-be to Suisan, was in attendance, as was Simeon’s brother, Jeremy, also a professional cook. Jeremy Simeon sported a T-shirt and hat with Tin Roof’s distinctive logo.
Loraine and Henry Terada were among those in line to taste Simeon’s culinary craftwork.
“It must be good. The line is really long,” Loraine Terada said.
Vince Manalo and Johnson Tran were at the street-side tables savoring the Top Chef’s take on Hawaii’s raw fish staple. Manalo said Simeon’s poke exceeded his expectations.
“The poke here is already fantastic, but it’s even better now today,” he said. “I hope they keep some of these.”
Tran marveled at “Da Lox,” Simeon’s local-style twist on a deli staple.
“It’s different from what they usually have,” Tran said. “Salmon and cream cheese. It’s like something you eat in a sandwich. We were talking about that.
“It’s always good but this is amazing.”
State Sen. Kai Kahele and Rep. Chris Todd — the latter a former Suisan manager — presented a joint legislative proclamation to Suisan Co. Ltd. Vice President and General Manager Kyle Kawano.
Kahele told a story that occurred during World War II, when the company’s property was seized and its principal, Kamezo Matsuno, was sent to an internment camp.
“Suisan was on the brink where they may have gone out of business,” Kahele said. “That was because during the war there was curfews and fishermen (of Japanese ancestry) couldn’t fish and they weren’t getting fish brought into Suisan. And so Suisan had to rely on non-Japanese fishermen, mostly Native Hawaiians from the small fishing village of Milolii, who continued to provide the ahi and the aku and the ono, so Suisan could stay in business. And that’s where my family is tied in because of our ancestral ties to Milolii. … My grandfather was … one of those fishermen who took ahi all the way, 89 miles from Milolii to Suisan. So for years, that bond between Milolii and Suisan has always existed.”
Kawano was visibly touched and expressed his pleasure with the event and the turnout.
“This is the culmination of 110 years,” Kawano said. “This is a great way to celebrate our 110-year anniversary and this is the roots of the company, where everything started. And we figured, why not have it here,” Kawano said. “I think this is a great venue to have the public come and enjoy some of our customers’ food and to enjoy Sheldon Simeon.”
Kawano noted the nostalgia associated with Suisan’s fish auction, now a cherished part of Hilo’s history.
“Back in the summer of 2001 was our last auction. I was fortunate enough to be Suisan’s last buyer on the auction. I was working at the Fish Division at the time. And that last day was pretty sad, but what we’ve done since then is to buy directly from the fishermen and not have that auction piece in the middle.”
Kawano noted the growth of the company from a fish market to Hawaii Island’s premier broadline food distributor under the direction of past presidents and CEOs Rex Matsuno and Glenn Hashimoto, and expects growth and the creation of new business avenues to continue under Steve Ueda, the current president and CEO and Matsuno’s grandson.
That growth includes 33 refrigerated trucks, more than 5,000 products and 1,000 wholesale customers, including KTA Super Stores, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2016. KTA took out an ad in Thursday’s Tribune-Herald to congratulate Suisan on its milestone.
“Our customers are our partners and it’s a privilege to continue to provide services for our customers like KTA,” Kawano said. “KTA and Suisan are great partners. Our whole delivery schedule surrounds what we do with KTA and the amount of times we deliver islandwide kind of revolve around servicing KTA.”
None of that would be possible, Kawano said, without the dedication of Suisan’s 185 employees.
“The employees that we have are why we’re here today,” he said. “Our employees are the heart, the backbone of the company. And as the company grew, we opened new divisions. We opened produce in Kona; we opened nonfoods here in Hilo. We’ve started to do some (third-party logistics) for Johnson Brothers (a beverage distributor) and some other companies … including Target and Whole Foods. Our employees were always able to step up and handle the additional workload.
“We’ve come quite a long ways, and not just buying food and delivering it to our customers. We found ways to help other customers by providing operational pieces to them.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
