What will the north end of Keawakapu look like by Thanksgiving? For most of this year the answer was a closed dining room behind construction noise, cars parked along the road shoulder and, after the storms, rock where the sand used to be. All three are now moving at the same time.
The restaurant space at Mana Kai Maui Resort is aiming to open in mid-November. A county parking lot meant to replace the shoulder parking has already gone out to bid. And a University of Hawaiʻi coastal specialist expects the sand to come back on its own. Together they will turn the Mana Kai end from a quiet access point into one of the busier places on the South Maui shoreline.
Where each piece stands
| Date in 2026 | What happened |
|---|---|
| March 17 | Mana Kai announces The Beach House for "late 2026" |
| September 4 | County publishes bid for the Keawakapu (Mana Kai) Parking Lot |
| September 9 | Liquor Control Commission hears The Beach House application; testimony cites a mid-November target |
| September 24 | Addendum posted to the parking lot bid |
| October 1 | Parking lot bid closes |
| October 4 | Maui Now reports exposed rock along Keawakapu's shoreline |
| November 12 | Liquor Control Commission's next scheduled meeting |
| Mid-November | The Beach House's stated opening target |
A dining room that runs from breakfast to midnight
The new restaurant is The Beach House by Merriman, from Peter Merriman and Handcrafted Restaurants. Mana Kai's announcement describes it as an oceanfront restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is going into Suite 101 at 2960 South Kihei Road, a space of about 6,048 square feet inside the Mana Kai condominium. Longtime South Maui diners know the room as the former home of 5 Palms, which The Maui News listed as open Wednesday through Sunday as recently as August 2020.
In the September 9 commission transcript, the application lists daily hours of 8 a.m. to midnight. The restaurant's attorney, Robert Ueoka, told commissioners the 8 a.m. start comes from the lease, and that the group might move it to 7 a.m., which is when another of its restaurants, Ulu Kitchen, opens. That means people on the north end of the beach from early morning to late night, an end of Keawakapu that has had no restaurant open on it for years.
On timing, Ueoka said the storm damage was manageable and the restaurant was "looking at an opening date in mid-November." He said changes in ownership and construction had pushed the schedule back. The commission voted unanimously to accept IP3, LLC's preliminary application for a Restaurant General license. The department noted that not all documents needed for a permanent license had been submitted yet. Mana Kai's own site says the renovation has all its permits and work is in progress, and it warns guests about noise. Mid-November is a target. Until the doors open, it is not a date to plan around.
Ueoka also made clear why the group wants this one open. Its Kauaʻi restaurant on Lawaʻi Road took serious storm damage. The Garden Island reported that Hurricane Lowell's surf on September 7 broke every window at The Beach House on Lawaʻi Road and pushed debris inside. The Kauaʻi restaurant's website now says it does not expect to reopen until later in 2027. For now, Keawakapu is where the name will be operating.
For a sense of what the group already runs nearby, Monkeypod Kitchen by Merriman in Wailea at 10 Wailea Gateway Place is open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. except select holidays, with happy hour from 2:30 to 5 p.m. The Beach House plans to open three hours earlier and close two hours later, right on the sand.
The parking lot the county already planned for
A restaurant open that many hours adds cars to a beach that is already short on parking, and the county's own planning documents say so. The FY 2027 Mayor's Proposed Budget includes $750,000 for a new gravel lot called the Keawakapu (Mana Kai) Parking Lot. The project sheet calls Keawakapu "a heavily visited beach and access point, with constrained parking and growing use." It says Kihei's shoreline parks see enough demand to cause shoulder parking, conflicts with pedestrians and unsafe traffic flow.
That justification was written about beachgoers, before any restaurant crowd. Listed possible features include:
- Graded gravel surfacing with marked stalls
- ADA-accessible parking
- Wheel stops or timber barriers
- Pedestrian access routes and signage
- Lighting where it applies
- Shallow swales or permeable gravel for stormwater
The stated aim is to reduce illegal shoulder parking and support use of Keawakapu Beach and the parkland next to it.
The project has moved beyond a budget line. The county posted it for construction bids as Job No. P22/004 on September 4, added an addendum on September 24 and closed bidding on October 1. The listing is now marked closed. No contract award has been announced, so construction will start later than the restaurant opens. Expect the same shoulder parking for the first stretch of the restaurant's life.
Today, the county's Keawakapu Beach Park page points beachgoers to access and parking across the street on Kilohana Drive. It lists showers, an ADA parking stall and one portable toilet at the Keawakapu II lot. The page also notes there is no lifeguard on this beach.
The sand, which should take care of itself
What diners and beachgoers find at the Mana Kai end next month depends on the third timeline. Maui Now, reporting with the Hawaiʻi Journalism Initiative on October 4, said erosion and storms had left "completely exposed rock along the shoreline" at Keawakapu. The damage built up over the year, starting with the consecutive Kona low storms in March and continuing through seven tropical cyclones that crossed the Central Pacific after July.
The same report carries the better news. Tara Owens, the Maui Nui program coordinator for the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant program, told Maui Now that South Maui is a "sand-rich system," while West Maui is a "sand-starved system." Keawakapu is the example the article gives of a beach that could recover "within a matter of weeks." She also said there was little time between this year's storms for beaches to recover, "but the good news is the beaches still will recover."
If that holds, the sand and the restaurant come back to the Mana Kai end at about the same time. The new dining room's first weeks would look out over a beach that is filling back in.
Using the north end through November
- Go early for parking. Until the county lot is built, Kilohana Drive and the existing lots are the options, and a restaurant opening at 8 a.m. will compete for the same spaces.
- Look at the shoreline before you get in the water. Rock exposed by the storms may still be showing along parts of the beach while the sand returns, and no lifeguard is posted.
- Watch for the real opening date. The mid-November target came from testimony in September. The opening will be official when the restaurant or Mana Kai announces it. The Liquor Control Commission's next scheduled meeting is November 12, according to its October 14 agenda.
- Divers have their own reason to come. The state Division of Aquatic Resources describes the Keawakapu artificial reef as a shallow-water offshore reef at 50 to 100 feet. A DLNR release lists what it is built from: cars, tire modules, concrete slabs and the vessel St. Anthony.
If you're wondering how a new oceanfront restaurant and a public parking lot could affect a home or condo near the Kilohana Drive end of Keawakapu, Kela Fernandez is glad to go over it with you, using the same county records cited here. Schedule a personal consultation, and we'll start with the property you have in mind.
