The Table Still Holds: A Storm in Lahaina and the Work of Beginning Again

Four days ago, J. texted me at 4:45 p.m., in the middle of my pre-shift meeting with the team.

Do we have to sit outside again tonight?

It had already been raining for days. Everything was damp, a faintly irritating feeling in always-sunny Lahaina. And she had been sitting at the same wet table for days now, almost every night since spring break began, because that is where her dad and I needed to be. Because her big sister was in town with her baby, making up for lost time and wanting dinner at the restaurant every night. So dinner had become more than boring for our mostly accommodating fifteen-year-old. Like me, my girl is a novelty chaser. Not a creature of habit, she does not like to do the same thing twice. She is always looking for a way to elevate the everyday. A table inside was, to her, the simplest way to change the night. And I didn’t blame her.

Except that, with the unrelenting weather, the inside of the restaurant was already booked solid. Our staff needed our support. We had to be there. Even if that meant sitting out on the lanai, night after rainy night, submitting ourselves to the circumstances. The sideways slant of the stinging, intermittent downpours still managed to slide underneath the covered roof. That night, we didn’t even have a server. A weather-driven staff shortage forced us to prop a handheld in the middle of the table instead, retro-COVID style, tapping in our own order. We were stubbornly determined to enjoy a good meal together and happy just to be out of the house.

These are the moments people don’t imagine in the romantic versions of restaurant life. The moments where even carving out time to sit with your family in the middle of a storm is compromised, pulled away that night by a printer glitch, a disgruntled guest, a regular who insists on meeting the new baby. The constant negotiation between being present in the dining room and present at your own table.

And then, yesterday, things took a turn. The second wave of the Kona low we had already been enduring hit the island hard. We woke to the steady chime of alerts on our phones, warning us that this would be a different kind of day. Maybe we wouldn’t be able to go out at all. Probably we would have to shut down service. The rain would not stop. Roads were compromised. Boulders blocked passageways. There were reports of sinkholes and severe flooding. Neighborhoods were evacuating. It felt like a cascading crisis, waves of disruption moving across the islands with a kind of inevitability.

We watched the weather reports, checked the Genasys app, called off staff, cancelled reservations. In this business, this is what it looks like to hold things together. Even when you can’t open your doors, you show up. You make the calls. You take the hit. You hold the safety of your team, your guests, your community as the priority, even as you quietly carry the reality of your still-shaky bottom line and another lost day of service in a place already marked by disaster. It is salvaging what you can. It is releasing what you cannot.

It is a small thing, in the face of a storm like this, to sit down to dinner. Not everyone on this island had that option last night. Many won’t tonight either. But as we begin, tentatively, to step back out—checking the roads, watching the forecasts, reading the room, we look again to the table. Will we open today? That is still unclear. The phone is ringing. People are texting. The books are full. But we will wait. Take a drive. Get a sense of things. See how our neighbors are doing. Because sometimes the best way to show up, to serve, is to offer a seat at a well-worn table and a warm meal. Sometimes simply opening the doors is a win. Sometimes a service that runs, even imperfectly, is a kind of success. Especially now. Sometimes the table is the only anchor we have, and sometimes we move between both worlds to keep it standing.

So tonight, you might find the five of us sitting outside again on the still waterlogged lanai, a party of five tucked into the corner. One anxious Italian watching the kitchen closely. A quiet woman beside him, taking in the room. Their daughters—especially the teenager—now grateful just to be together under clearing skies. Passing plates. Making space. Everyone leaving fed, happy even.

Later, from my perch upstairs at home, I look out over Lahaina. The sky is beginning to clear. The rain has softened to a spritz. I am reassured. Everything passes. Every day, every service, every table is another chance to begin again. Maybe today we will open the doors. Maybe we will cook. Maybe we will set the table again. I know now, more than ever, that it will hold.

If you’ve been reading along, I’ll be opening a private space in April to share more of these dispatches from life at the table.