HONOLULU (KHON2) — About 19 percent of Hawaii’s population is active duty military, their dependents or a federal worker. With the government shutdown continuing, businesses are bracing for an uncertain future.
It’s Aloha Friday lunch time at Ruby Tuesday Moanalua. It’s busy, but there are a few empty seats. And they’re expecting it to get worse.
“We have a lot of people who are here from government workers,” said Rick Nakashima, Ruby Tuesday owner. “We’re right next to Pearl and Hickam, yeah, that’s definitely gonna be an effect on us.”
Restaurants across the state share the same feeling. Even though this is traditionally a downtime for businesses – during school and before the holidays – the federal shutdown has everyone bracing for a dip.
“So this is a little lower than normal, but they understand,” said Sheryl Matsuoka, Hawaii Restaurant Association President & CEO. “With the government shutdown and some of the employees that aren’t getting paychecks, that could impact our industry.”
“I don’t wanna talk one side or the other, but apparently it’s both sides that’s fighting each other, and the losers are the taxpayers,” said Nakashima.
Nakashima’s been in the restaurant business for 22 years now. And he says this is just part of being an entrepreneur. Dealing with things like COVID, tariffs, and the soon-to-be rising minimum wage.
“There’s always something,” said Matsuoka. “Luckily, restaurants are resilient. Right, no matter what, we’re out there to serve our community, and we just wanna really thank the community. Because it is our community that’s keeping the restaurants going. Especially during times of uncertainty like now.”
Nakashima says he’s always trying to be a part of the community by hosting events. Like the Timmy Chang Show, which you can see right here on KHON.
“It’s a really big help having The Timmy Chang Show,” said Nakashima. “Like right now, there’s a reunion for a class of 1950 something out there on the lanai. Military will have parties here. I love having events here.”
And just like many, restaurants just want to see everyone back at work. So they can continue serving those who serve.
“We just really wanna thank those who are still working and they’re not receiving any paychecks,” said Matsuoka. “You know they’re the ones who’s keeping us traveling, our air traffic controllers, our TSA, even our active military, you know, keeping us safe.”
“We’re operating at full blast,” said Nakashima. “You know we really appreciate the local support.”