Lee Anne Wong Transcript

 Lee Anne Wong Transcript

Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. We have a special interview for you today with Lee Anne Wong, the Maui-based chef, who lost her restaurant in the tragic Lahaina fires earlier this month. Lee Anne and I spoke a few days ago via Zoom. Like many in Maui's culinary community, Chef Lee Anne is part of the relief efforts taking place. She is working with a collective known as Chef Hui, and they're making on average 10,000 meals a day for those in need. She's also spreading the word about what happened and what is going on right now in Maui, in an effort to raise both awareness and funds. Chef Lee Anne's restaurant, Papaʻaina Ina was located at the Pioneer Inn, an historic hotel built in Lahaina in 1901. Chef Lee Anne took over the restaurant space almost four years ago and was happy to finally have the pandemic behind her and then tragedy struck. Lee Anne also has a restaurant Oahu called Koko Head Cafe, and the team there has been fundraising and doing what they can to help their Lahaina colleagues. 

As Chef Lee Anne told me, she is grateful for the support of the culinary community at home and beyond, and thankful to everyone who has reached out to her. She told me during times of need or distress or even peace, the culinary community is always the first to jump in. "We understand food is love and food heals people," she said. Please visit our show notes for the link to the GoFundMe campaign for the staff of the Pioneer Inn and Papaʻaina Restaurant and for the link to donate to Chef Hui. Please give, if you can. Here's my interview with Chef Lee Anne Wong. 

Lee Anne, first thing I wanted to say is thank you so much for doing this this morning, and I just wanted to say how sorry I am on behalf of our team and our community at large.

Lee Anne Wong:
It's been 10 days, 12 days, 11 days, and it's still... It's crazy everything that's happening. There's so many facets and layers to not only just the devastation and the tragedy of the Lahaina fires, but upcountry Kula had fires too. There were over 600 acres that were destroyed. People lost their farms and their homes. What's interesting now is that there's a lot of mixed messaging out there, and clearly the whole Hawaiian community, especially Lahaina, is grieving. People are in shock. They're traumatized. People don't know what's next because they're putting people into temporary housing, but that's it, it's temporary. Now you're on a ticking time clock to figure out if you can stay or go. Again, some people lost everything. People keep calling me and reaching out, saying, "So sorry for your restaurant." I'm like, "Restaurant is that..." I think that's also part of the process is like for me, and I've been talking to my friends about it.

It's like, "Why do we grieve... so many people lost so many things," and to me, I'm like, "Yeah, I lost my restaurant. I lost my job, but so many people lost so much more and there are still 1,000 people unaccounted for, so it's, I think... I'm sorry, I get really emotional every time I talk about it, but there's still a lot of unknowns. So we're still picking up the pieces and at the same time, our economy has come to a halt, and I think this is a very big point of contention right now where there's a lot of mixed messaging out there by both the states, celebrities. The residents of Maui and Hawaii are very, very hurt. They're very angry because essentially, we are a place that depends on tourism. We are a place that needs the love and support of the worldwide community. To say, "Don't come to Maui," is like, it literally is going to create an economic collapse for the rest of our community who have literally dropped everything and dedicated all their time, money, and resources to the relief effort.

Those people are now going to suffer just because, and again, I think everybody, I'm not blaming anybody, I think everybody is justified in how they feel in the present moment. It's very, very complex, but the real economics are is that they've shut down the west side of Maui. Most of the businesses that are still standing are shut down and now there's a vacuum. There is no place for their employees to live. There's no place for visitors to stay. A lot of the hotels are being turned into shelters right now and housing FEMA and gig workers who are coming in to help with the search and rescue. What we're seeing is this domino effect within our economy, and this is like we just got through COVID. Maui has had a really, really hard time recovering from COVID. I just wrote an article about inflation for Food & Wine and that has everything to do with our current state and now this tragedy and it's like, I don't know. I don't know.

Lahaina it was the heart and soul of the Hawaiian kingdom. It was the old kingdom, and it was a very special place within Hawaiian culture beyond the fact that it was a center of business for our community. That is one thing, I think the history that was lost with the buildings that burned and obviously all the people. We can rebuild, but you cannot replace people, and I think that's the real gravity of what's happened. Everybody's doing their best. There's again, a lot of anger and a lot of finger pointing going to happen in the coming days and months, and at some point we have to rebuild. I know the governor came on and did a press conference. He's like, "We have to rebuild Lahaina." There's again, a lot of people are this reaction like, "It's too soon. It's too soon." Yes, when he says we have to rebuild Lahaina, the reality is it's going to take at least five to 10 years to fully rebuild that side of the island, but what happens to the rest of the island in the meantime?

That, I think, is the scarier part for the rest of the community who live and work in Central South Maui and Upcountry and I thankfully, live Upcountry. I was in Oahu on Tuesday for my staff party for Koko Head when everything went down. I was in constant communication and on texts where I could be with my staff 'cause it was hard to reach them because the cell towers were down. So I was only getting in touch with people sporadically and basically didn't sleep that night. I think it was 3:30 in the morning Tuesday into Wednesday, and one of my cooks sent me a photo somebody had taken from, I think they were in the water at the harbor, not in a boat. They were in the water and they were right in front of the lighthouse in Lahaina Harbor, and there was just nothing standing behind it. The building was gone. The Pioneer Inn was gone, and the Pioneer Inn was 122 years old.

Kerry Diamond:
That's where your restaurant was?

Lee Anne Wong:
Yeah. It was the oldest operating hotel in Hawaii and Baldwin House, the courthouse, the church, there's so many pieces of history that were lost. Again, those things can be replaced. People on the other hand, again, the loss is unfathomable 'cause we still don't know.

Kerry Diamond:
Your son was okay, right?

Lee Anne Wong:
My son was fine. My son and my husband were at home, but oh, no, they were with me in Oahu. But we got home that day, that Wednesday, we got home at 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. As we flew over, we could see not only... I got back on an empty plane and we could see that Lahaina was just like a strip of black smoking char. It was like the whole town was just gone, and we could see that there were five fires still going on Upcountry as we flew into the airport. We got home and I said, "Babe, I'm going to pack our bags." I packed go bags as soon as I got home because now you have that fear.

There are fires still going on in Maui right now that haven't been contained. You have that fear because you just don't know. Mother nature is fickle, and it's very windy in Maui. Yeah, we had that fear that like, "Oh, my gosh, okay, we're home. Let's pack." All the while my husband got in the car, he drove up the road to see just how close the fires were, talked to a fireman and a policeman. Thankfully, it was still a few miles away from us, but we sat by the front door that day, ready to go.

Kerry Diamond:
We're going to talk about some ways that folks can help because you sprang into action along with a lot of other chefs in the community. I know you're part of Chef Hui. Can you tell us about that and what you're doing?

Lee Anne Wong:
Yeah, so my good friends Mark and Amanda Noguchi live in Oahu. I've known them for 12, 13 years, and they started Chef Hui back in 2018, which really came into effect during COVID. What it is, it's a collective of local chefs, food producers, and we work with the community. It's really about building knowledge and those relationships of how we work with the farmers to create beautiful food to feed our community. The goal of Chef Hui is to keep chefs cooking, keep cooks cooking, keep farmers farming and feed the community, that's really it. We do that through education, outreach and really talk about the connection to the Ainu people's relationship with the earth. So those things come into play because now Chef Hui, and I have to say there has been... I've learned a lot in 10 days, I've learned a lot about my community.

I've learned a lot about nonprofit charity organizations, how they work. I've learned about emergency crisis management. I've learned a lot about our local government. Honestly, there was one woman that I met, and her name is Jennifer Karaca, and she runs Common Ground Collective. She's literally a one-woman show. She worked with both Salvation Army and Red Cross throughout the pandemic and making sure that she could reach those pockets of community that maybe didn't have shelter and just making sure they have food and water. She really was the person, the keystone that brought Chef Hui in. She secured the space at the college, University of Hawaii, Manoa College, the culinary arts program.

She was like liquid cash funding us the first week until Amanda and Mark had come in. They arrived two days ago and basically set up the accounts and as fundraising comes in, they're able to use it. So what we have is Chef Hui and Common Ground Collective literally doing cash purchasing right now because the other aspect is that we don't want just donations, we want to spend money in the Maui community. We have to spend money in the Maui community. So all of the donations that are being donated to Chef Hui, Common Ground is not only going towards feeding those who need it, but it's also going towards keeping those businesses alive that are helping our community, that are in our community, that are also suffering and have been impacted by this as well.

Kerry Diamond:
You're doing over 10,000 meals a day?

Lee Anne Wong:
Yes.

Kerry Diamond:
Wow.

Lee Anne Wong:
Obviously, we're not the only food source. We are a food source in the sense that we've been contracted by the Salvation Army to provide food for all the Red Cross shelters across the state. Then World Central Kitchen had dropped in, I think, on Thursday, and their role is coordinating with us. We're giving them our food and they're going out into the field, and they're working with some of our local community to do outreach in the affected areas. So that's been a really key part as well. I think one thing that we've found out and they've found out is there's no cookie cutter template for disaster relief and disaster aid. I think the thing that always changes and what people need to understand is that there's a human element, there's a sensitivity. We had a chance of decompress the other night, and we invited some of our friends and colleagues from World Central Kitchen who've been on the ground with us. They were in awe. They were like, "We've never seen a community like this. We've never seen people so strong and just everybody willing to help.

We've never gone into a place where the community, the citizens have mobilized and organized the way that you have." It's not just Chef Hui, but restaurants on the west side who are trapped chefs who have lost everything. JoJo Vasquez of FOND, they dropped their daughter off at college in California and their entire house burned down and he was feeding people out of his restaurant on Napili. Joey Macadangdang, half his staff lost all their homes. They're sleeping on the floor of his restaurant at night and during the day, they're cooking to feed the community. Merriman's is making over 1,000 meals a day. Plantation House is making a couple of thousand meals a day. So literally, chefs are doing what they know how to do, which is feed people. If you think about the culinary community and anytime of need, distress, or even when it's not, times of peace, and we're raising funds. The culinary community is always the first to jump in. We're always the first to contribute and be there because we understand that food is love and food heals people and it creates memories.

So to see my brothers and sisters just so selfless, there's so many unsung heroes in this entire story of Lahaina, and there still are. I feel like I'm here, but I feel guilty 'cause I want to be there. Everyone's like, No, no, no, go away. You need the weekend." again, I'm not going to point fingers, but essentially when needed, the local boat captains are like, "What can we do? How can we get food to the other side?" We've had people who own private planes and helicopters being like, "How can I get medical supplies? How can I get insulin? Again, it's interesting, government's going to do. There's been a lot of red tape that we've had to step over to get to our community. The health department has been waiting at our drop zones with a thermometer to throw our food out. Can you believe that? Literally, they came to our hub at one point and they're like, "We need you to timestamp everything." I'm like, "I dare you to write me a citation. I dare you." We're resourceful.

I think that the whole community has been resourceful in figuring out how to get food, water supplies, generators, propane to the people who need it most. I think the scary part is, is that we have, like some of my employees, I know one of my employees in particular, he still doesn't have cell phone. He's without power. He's living in Upper Lahainaluna. The water up there is toxic. You can't even shower with it. Don't boil it, don't drink it. He doesn't want to leave because all his possessions are there, his books, everything. I text my chef who's in Napili, and it's like, "Hey, you got to go get this person. You have to go rent him a storage unit. Go with boxes, get his books, get as much as you can, but he cannot stay there because help is not coming. They're not going to turn the power on. The water's not going to be clean anytime soon." That's the situation that people who do have something left, those are some of the choices that they have to make. I know this person is a lifelong Lahaina resident and my heart breaks for him because I'm hoping that he can stay here.

Kerry Diamond:
Is it the sense of community that you're talking about what drew you to Maui in the first place and kept you there because you are not from there. You're a New Yorker.

Lee Anne Wong:
No. I moved to Oahu in 2013. I opened up Koko Head Cafe, and then I had my son in 2017, and I had met my husband in Kauai. He wanted to move to Kauai? I was like, "No." So Maui was that choice. It was close. I said, "It's this nice in between." We have a hui of friends over here already, this community that I love. I knew Sheldon. I knew a couple of the chefs over here. Maui's beautiful. Every Hawaiian island is beautiful, but I think Maui in particular was very, very beautiful to me just because of the space. We managed to find a rental Upcountry in Pukalani, a very old neighborhood. There's something about being able to walk out my front door and see the ocean on both sides, and it's beautiful. I love Maui. It's very different from all the other islands. Each island has its own personality and its own community, and I'm heartbroken.

I spent a year-and-a-half looking at different spaces and restaurants to come over here 'cause I knew I needed a job. I kept coming back to the Pioneer Inn because of its history, because of what a unique and historical building it was, and just the Lahaina community, it was just such a strong and unique one. A lot of the people that has lived there all their lives and worked there all their lives, and a majority of them worked in the hospitality industry. That's what I have to say, is that a majority of the residents in Lahaina worked at a restaurant or a hotel. Again, for them, everything's gone, and I think that we need to give them as much love and support now as possible. I've been so overwhelmed and I think I need to take a beat to again, "Okay, how can I help them find jobs? Who's got a place to live?" I want to be able to provide my employees options now. It's been 10 days.

Kerry Diamond:
There is a GoFundMe for the team.

Lee Anne Wong:
I'm trying to cover about 15 hotel staff who again lived in Lahaina are now living in hotels and shelters. Every dollar counts, every penny counts for these people to help them rebuild their lives. I think that what we need to buy people right now is time. That's the best thing that we can offer them is time and space to grieve, to figure out what they need. Again, I'll go back to the mixed messaging. If Maui is open for business, West Maui is closed, disaster tourism is closed. People who have that voyeuristic, "I want to go swimming, I want to go see Lahaina."

No, it's not for your social media. I'm sorry. We love the fact that people want to come to Maui, but at the same time right now, it needs to be dealt with with sensitivity, compassion, and empathy, and understand that this whole community, the Hawaiian community is suffering. At the same time, we need people to support our existing businesses. So if you can't come here, see if you can buy gift cards, businesses that are still standing, see if you can even donate to them. Just anything you can do to keep these other businesses alive, to keep the remaining community employed because it's a crisis for sure.

Kerry Diamond:
I watched some videos of your restaurant. I looked at your Instagram account, I looked at your menus. It was clear what a beautiful place it was and how much fun you had there and working on the menus. Are you okay to tell us a little bit about what the restaurant was?

Lee Anne Wong:
Yeah, I think when I came across, and the owners live in Oklahoma, the owners have had the building since 1990. In terms of managing the ground lease, the Freelands owned the property, and they live in California. The Lennon family based out of Oklahoma, they have just been such lovely employers, I think. The Pioneer Inn Bar and Grill had... it wasn't known for its food, let put it that way. It was definitely an old whaler's bar, a little bit of a dive. I think to come in and right away... and that area in general, Lahaina, old Lahaina, there's a lot of burgers, fish fry tacos kind of stuff, and that's great. But I definitely wanted to do something different, which was more me. One of the reasons I moved to Maui in general was I remember the first time I went to the farmer's market Upcountry, I was like, "I have to live here," and that was it. It planted that seed and Papa'aina became what I like to term as a hyper-local restaurant because we're in a state that imports over 95% of its food supply.

For me to push to go 100% local, it wasn't a small feat. It definitely was something that within that area that I was in that people didn't understand or didn't recognize me at first because we do get a lot of tourists. Literally, cruise ships will dump 2000 people on my front door, and they don't necessarily care if the beans are organic or if they came from a farm, they just want food. But that was my choice, to support our farmers, to support my ranchers and fishermen and deliver something that was unique and fun. Also, when you do a restaurant like that, you're making that impact on your cooks and your chefs, giving them those standards and understanding that this is a different way to run a restaurant. It's up to you. It doesn't mean it's right or wrong, but for me, I think supporting the local community and making that circle complete is really, really important. Keeping that commerce here in the state is really important, especially after COVID.

Kerry Diamond:
And you opened the restaurant three years ago?

Lee Anne Wong:
Yeah, I opened 2019, two months before COVID. Then they had Harbor construction. They set up a six-story crane for two years, literally on my doorstep, on my doorstep. So we were in a construction zone for two years as we climbed out of COVID, and we were just trying to figure that all out and then this. So it's not how I wanted it, but I have a clean slate, I think. I want to think about this positively and think about this as an opportunity to rebuild. It does no good, again, there's going to be a lot of anger, a lot of who's responsible? But at the same time, we have to rebuild. We have to stay positive. My job is to basically figure out how I can start another restaurant and provide more jobs to our community. That's what I want.

How can I get back in the midst and support my farmers and support the relationships that I've taken three years to form, and how can I provide jobs? That's really it. How can I feed my community again? At the same time, I'm just doing what I can to, as is our thousands of people, I just do want to say the outpouring of support that we have seen from the world, from our sister islands, from the culinary community. I have been contacted by every chef on TV, every chef, they've all reached out, and it's amazing, again, how I'm always impressed by us, by how we are just so ready and willing to give when we can. I think that is amazing.

We are doing the Mililani Celebrity Chef Classic, I think, in two weeks on Big Island. Bruce Bromberg lives... he has a place on Big Island, and he's been here with us at Chef Hui. He landed, I think, on Friday. It's been wonderful to have him here because he's been such a calm, grounding presence for us. So we're going to take them Mililani Culinary Classic, which I think Stephanie Izard will be there, Sheldon, Jose Garces, John Waxman, and we're going to turn that into a fundraiser for Maui. Again, we have to figure out how to move forward even through tears and grief, and that's okay. That's what I keep telling myself, "It's okay to cry."

Kerry Diamond:
There are a lot of people who love you, Lee Anne, you have a long history in this-

Lee Anne Wong:
Yeah, thank you.

Kerry Diamond:
Some of our listeners might be too young to remember or just don't remember, but you were on the first season of “Top Chef” and then you actually-

Lee Anne Wong:
That was like 20 years ago.

Kerry Diamond:
You worked on “Top Chef” for years after that. You've been a presence on food television. Tell us about your other restaurant because we want people to support that as well.

Lee Anne Wong:
Yeah, thank you. Koko Head is on Oahu, and we just opened in Tokyo, and we're getting ready to open in Osaka next summer. I can't even tell you how I feel blessed. Again, it's like I'm so lucky that I have my other 'ohana, who is not only doing everything they can to support this relief effort through fundraising for my staff and through fundraisers. I know they've just been working tirelessly, and people want to know how they can help and restaurants want to know how they can help. I think it's those little things like every plate of hummus you buy, we will send $1.00 or $2.00 to this Maui Kukula Restaurant fund or whatever, Chef Hui. So I think there are lots of ways that people can continue to help. I'm so proud of my Koko Head team and my Koko Head family for standing up and being leaders in our community.

Robynne Mai'i and her husband, Chuck, they raised $28,000 for our staff the other day. They dedicated all their staff sales, their entire staff dedicated their tips and gratuities my staff. So throughout all of this, you're just so touched by, again, the human element and the compassion and the caring and the kokua that we get from our community close up and abroad. I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who is paying attention to everybody who's listening and everybody who has contributed to this release effort. You can go on to social media, I think it's really important where you put your money, but there are definitely GoFundMe and Venmos that go direct to the people who have lost everything. So you can definitely look at those charitable organizations, Chef Hui, Common Ground Collective. Roy and Denise have the Kokua Restaurant and Hospitality Fund, which goes directly to affected restaurant workers.

There's Maui and Aloha United Way, and those are great. Salvation Army and Red Cross, obviously, they are really taking care of the bulk of our residents who've been displaced, and of course, World Central Kitchen, who have been an awesome arm for us. There's so many nonprofits that have been doing amazing work here on the ground for our community and me and everybody else, we're wholly grateful for it because it really does, it takes a village. You cannot heal and you cannot rebuild without your community. So we're humbled and we're grateful, and it's a mixed bag of emotions for sure. We're going to rebuild.

Kerry Diamond:
Thank you to Chef Lee Anne Wong for joining me. Again, visit our show notes for the link to the GoFundMe for the staff of the Pioneer Inn and Papa'aina restaurant and to donate to Chef Hui to help with their efforts in Maui feeding those in need, please give if you can. Can follow Chef Lee Anne on Instagram @LeeAnneWong. Follow Chef Hui @ChefHuiHi, that's H-U-I-H-I. Thank you to Cherry Bombe's Jenna Sadhu, Catherine Baker, and Londyn Crenshaw for their help with this episode. We'll be back on Monday. Thank you for listening, everyone.