AFTER 26 YEARS WE WERE FORCED TO CLOSE OUR STORE.
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"Kailua First Stop -
a neighborhood store".
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Mahalo!
If you see spam on our website, we apologize. This website has been up since 2007, and we never had any spam distorting our communications with you. But ever since we were forced to close our store, this website has been flooded with spam. We try to clean it up as fast as we can. Mahalo for your patience!
To our valued customers, friends, neighbors, employees and vendors.
It is with great sadness that we have to say good bye to our valued customers, friends, neighbors, loyal employees and vendors and shut our doors after 26 years. We have never missed a month of paying rent or percentage rent but we learned that this is not enough. This store and serving the community has been our life and commitment. Unfortunately we were unable to obtain a lease that would allow us to stay in business.
Since 2008 we have been trying to negotiate with our landlord to obtain a lease that would allow us to remodel, update the store and services, bringing back the cappuccino machine, expand the Deli section with sandwiches on demand and salads and even more. All we were able to obtain were leases for only 1 year which made it extremely difficult if not impossible to invest a significant amount of money to update. We know that an update of our store was needed and we apologize to our customers for not being able to update the store under these circumstances.
This year we learned that the landlord has given away almost half the space to another tenant which will move in 20 feet into the existing space. This change will take out the walk in freezer and a substantial amount of the walk in cooler. We would have to totally redesign and re-equip the store which would cost more than we can afford with a limited time of a lease. To operate a convenience store, catering to the neighborhood and visitors alike requires a lot of products and storage.
Losing our business means losing our income, our livelihood, what we love to do. We will not be able to keep our home and will have to sell our house and move out of state. We will have to lay off long term employees some of whom have worked for us for over 10 years. We are confident that if it was up to our local customers and our team we would be able to stay. People love the family atmosphere where everybody is treated with Aloha and respect.
Having to sell our house and leaving Hawaii and Kailua means leaving our home, where two of our grandsons were born in 2006 and 2009. This place is dear to us and so are our employees and customers about whom we deeply care. We will have to leave our son Brian behind who is our partner in business and with whom we enjoyed working together for many years.
We always have negotiated in good faith, willing to cooperate but we were unable to obtain a lease and conditions that would allow us to continue our successful neighborhood store.
We bid ALOHA and Good bye to all of you and wish you good luck in the future!
Susan and Wolfgang Hucklenbroich
Kailua, September 30.2010
