If you have lived in Kailua long enough to remember when Le Crêpe Café held down that spot on Hekili, the past nine months have probably felt busier than usual. Storefronts have turned over, familiar names have taken second and third locations, and a few genuinely new concepts have landed between Uluniu and Oneawa. This is a walk through what has actually changed on the streets you already drive every day.
The pattern worth noticing
Most of the openings this year are not outsiders arriving. They are Kailua operators expanding inside Kailua, or Oahu businesses that already had a Kailua following adding a second or third location here. That is a different signal than a wave of new-to-town concepts chasing beach traffic. It suggests the people running these shops looked at their own customer lists, saw where their regulars actually live, and decided the return on a Kailua footprint beat any other move on the island.
Keep that frame in mind as you read the rest. The specific names matter less than the shape of the year.
Sweets, curry, and a coffee bar that outgrew itself
Cinnamon's Sweet Shop, a new sweets concept from the popular Kailua restaurant Cinnamon's, officially opened its doors on Monday, June 1, 2026. It sits at 315 Uluniu St, Suite 102, Kailua, HI and is open daily from 7:00 a.m. The shop is not a rebrand of the restaurant. It is a separate storefront selling handcrafted confections, baked goods, prepackaged local products, soft serve, and specialty drinks, and it is dedicated to Cricket "Bonnie" Nam, one of Cinnamon's three founders and mother of owner Alika Nam. If you have taken visiting family to Cinnamon's for the red velvet pancakes, the sweet shop is the after-brunch stop that used to require a drive back into town.
A block over in Kailua Shopping Center, the Indian menu that used to belong to Himalayan Kitchen has been replaced. New Kamana Kitchen 3 recently opened its third location (hence, the "3" in the restaurant name) in Kailua Shopping Center; the eatery is in the former space of Himalayan Kitchen. The menu is similar to the ones offered at the business's other two stores in downtown Honolulu and Kapahulu, and the shop is open daily, 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. for lunch, 4 to 9 p.m. for dinner at 600 Kailua Road. For anyone who used to drive to Kapahulu for butter chicken, that trip is now a shopping-center walk.
Then there is Oneawa Street, where the coffee has quietly gotten more serious. Rise & Grind started at a farmers market and now anchors a corner. The business started in 2021 as a coffee trailer. Since then, it's expanded to a brick-and-mortar storefront in Kailua — and recently expanded its space to include a larger kitchen and additional seating. The shop sits at 22 Oneawa Street in the former space of 22 Kailua, which moved to a different location (at 326 Kuulei Road). Owner Leah Garwood has hinted at what the extra square footage is for:
We'll eventually keep the diner side open later and do more lunch throughout the day. We wanted to start doing evening things — now that we have the space, we have a lot of opportunities to do stuff.
If you have driven past and wondered why the same building suddenly feels bigger, that is why.
The Hekili Street shuffle
The stretch of Hekili between Kailua Road and Hamakua has quietly reset. Kailua Town is the second location for this welcoming gathering place that opened in the former Le Crêpe Café space on Hekili Street in November 2025. The menu leans into house-baked focaccia sandwiches, scratch-made soups, fresh salads, crepes, in-house baked treats, teas and specialty coffees, including barista specials that change quarterly. Between that opening and 22 Kailua's move up to 326 Kuulei Road, a resident who has not walked this loop since last summer will find two familiar addresses attached to different businesses.
This is the part locals feel first. It is not that Kailua has more places. It is that the same corners now belong to different people, and the muscle memory of "where to grab a sandwich before the beach" needs updating.
Wellness, and the dog club that is not a daycare
Fitness took a step this year too. Revolt Studio is the newest addition to Kailua Town's fitness scene. Founded by Kristine Kelly, a Kailua resident and mother of two, this boutique studio specializes in hot mat Pilates and strength training classes, high-energy rhythm-driven cycling, and classes for new and expecting moms, including a "Mama x Mini" mat class for mothers with infants under two years. That last detail is the local one. A hot Pilates studio is not novel on Oahu. A hot Pilates studio built around an owner who can also program a class you can bring your infant to reflects a very specific reading of who lives in Kailua right now.
The stranger and more interesting opening belongs to Dogtown Bakery. Dogtown Bakery has expanded – but not in the way you would expect. Welcome to Paws and Play. Hawaii's first canine social club redefines what a dog club can be: a climate-controlled haven where safety meets homestyle comfort and where a full schedule of enrichment activities, play sessions, structured socialization, and just plain fun awaits pups and their humans. This is worth pausing on. A dog bakery deciding its next expansion is a members-style social club, not a second retail counter, tells you something about the customer they already have. It is the same pattern as Cinnamon's opening a sweet shop and Rise & Grind knocking out a wall: read your regulars, then build the next room for them.
The two markets, in one place
The farmers markets are still the anchor of a Kailua weekend, and it is worth having the current schedule in one place. Both operate through the end of the year.
| Market | Day | Hours | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| KailuaTown Farmers Market | Sunday | 8:00 a.m.–noon | Pali Lanes, downtown Kailua |
| Kailua Farmers' Market (Hawaii Farm Bureau) | Thursday | 4:00–7:00 p.m. | Kailua Town Center |
The Sunday market is now located at Pali Lanes in the heart of downtown Kailua. The Thursday market is hosted every Thursday at the Kailua Town Center from 4:00 - 7:00 pm, and with over 40 vendors selling freshly harvested locally grown produce, honey, jams, jellies, baked goods, drinks and hot prepared foods, it does most of the heavy lifting for a mid-week produce run.
One overlap worth flagging: Rise & Grind still runs its trailer at the Kailua farmers market (at Castle Hospital) on Sundays alongside the Oneawa Street storefront. Same coffee, different setting, if you want to make an actual morning of it.
What this changes on a Saturday loop
Pull the openings together and the picture is clearer than any single one of them. Cinnamon's added a dessert counter. Rise & Grind added a kitchen. Dogtown Bakery added a club. Kamana Kitchen picked Kailua as its third location. A Le Crêpe address is now sandwiches and soups. Revolt built a class schedule around Kailua parents specifically.
None of that reads like a town trying to become something else. It reads like operators betting that the people already here are going to spend a little more of their week in town, and building for that. If you own in Kailua, that is quietly good news. Neighborhood shopping centers hold value when the tenants inside them are expanding rather than churning, and the 2026 tenant list at 315 Uluniu, 22 Oneawa, 600 Kailua Road, and the Hekili corridor is a healthier list than it was eighteen months ago.
The next time you make the Sunday loop from Pali Lanes to Uluniu to Oneawa, you will feel it. The town is not louder. It is just denser with reasons to stay in it.
If you are thinking through what all of this means for your own property, whether you are considering a move within Kailua or curious what your home is worth in a market where the storefronts keep expanding around it, Freddie D. Cantorna is happy to talk it through. Explore the Kailua neighborhood page or get in touch when you are ready. Let's Connect.
