Hilo Hattie Comes to Haole Land

When Hilo Hattie’s ersatz trolley pulls up to one of its six stores on the Hawaiian Islands, locals aren’t the ones hopping off. The indigenous garment manufacturer with the trademark red hibiscus label, founded on Oahu in 1963, is considered something of a tacky tourist trap. So when the self-proclaimed “Store of Hawaii” decided to plop its first mainland branch at the Block shopping mall in Orange last year, the thought was, “Perfect! We’ll snag all those Disneyland tourists who’ll remember us from their trip to Hawaii.”

So who shows up? As it turns out, very few tourists and a whole lot of locals demanding more boutiquey, higher-end Hawaiiana. Those “Great for the Golf Course” knit sport shirts go over swell with the Newport Beach resort crowd. Trendy OC teens love pukas. Hawaiians from Gardena and Samoans from Carson seek Li Hing Mui snacks--some made of dried mango, others of plum pits--and Huli-Huli, a ginger-soy-garlic barbecue sauce for luau basting. “I kept calling the buyer in Hawaii and saying, ‘What the devil is this stuff?’ ” recalls store merchandiser Karen Phillips. “ ‘I’ve got thousands of people asking for it!’ ”

John Bixler, a World War II vet who “married a Hawaiian girl in ‘45,” is Hilo’s official greeter. He nabs you at the entrance to the 20,000-square-foot store and places a shell necklace around your neck to spread the “Aloha Spirit.” His wife passed away not too long ago, and to Bixler, handing out leis--on his busiest day thus far, he went through 7,000--has been “helpful to stay close to her. Hawaii is part of me, and part of my wife.”

Like Bixler, nearly every customer surveyed on a recent morning shares a connection to the islands far more intimate than that of a mere tourist. Sam Choy, a gentle man with long hair, buys macadamia nuts for his father, a fishing-net designer who was based in Hawaii in World War II. Angela DeLeon, picking out luau supplies, paddles an outrigger canoe in Monterey. Malcolm Brown, a lively fellow in a cardigan who mulls the Wyland jewelry counter, studies Hawaiian martial arts. “This is the ‘tiger,’ ” he says, demonstrating an intricate move. The “seaweed” chop accidentally pummels a reporter’s notebook to the floor.

Oahu native Dave Esias cradles a pile of gift muu-muus and Aloha Shirts. Would he ever set foot in the Honolulu Hilo Hattie? No way, he says, but here, in the midst of an Orange shopping mall, “it feels like a piece of home.”

Shirt Tales * Hilo Hattie manufactures 26,000 garments a week in its Honolulu factory.

* The “Blue Hawaii Aloha Shirt,” pictured here, is the store’s best seller. It is 55% rayon and 45% cotton, and it retails for $27.99.

* Because of customer demand at the Orange store, the company now sells long-sleeved Aloha Shirts--a first in its 37-year history.

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Hilo Hattie, the Block at Orange; (714) 769-3255.