In his book, “Kauai: As It Was in the 1940s and ’50s,” Mike Ashman (1921-2018) wrote nostalgically about prices on Kauai in 1940, the year he first arrived on the Garden Island to become an announcer at KTOH radio.
For example, at that time, a bowl of saimin cost 5¢ at the Barbeque Inn on Kress Street, Lihue, located across the street from the old Kress Store, which sold mostly 5- and 10-cent items.
At the Tip Top Café in the Tip Top Building, which then stood on the site of today’s circular Moikeha Building, and was demolished in 1965, the coffee and pastry combo cost 5 cents.
Ota’s Sweet Shop by the Lihue Theater, which sold candies, ice cream and snacks, like crack seed, charged 5¢ for an ice cream soda.
Sun Kwong Sing Store by the Hanapepe Bridge, sold a pound of rice or sugar for just 5¢, dresses went for 25¢, 50¢ and 75¢, and for 8¢ you could buy a can of Campbell’s soup, Van Camp’s pork &beans, Vienna sausage or Pet evaporated milk.
Lihue Store, once located on a now vanished corner of Rice Street, north of and opposite the Isenberg Memorial, advertised coffee at 22¢/lb., chuck roast at 22¢/lb., dress shirts at $1.55, and ladies slack suits for $1.98.
The three H.S. Kawakami stores sold dresses for only $1.
In Kapaa, Yoshida Service Station inaugurated a taxi service that charged 20¢ a ride between Lihue and Kapaa-Kealia.
An Inter-Island Airways round-trip flight to Oahu was $27.
Ashman also wrote that during World War II, Alfred and Vera Hills had turned their home at the mouth of the Wailua River over to the USO to provide entertainment for servicemen.
Then in 1951, they remodeled their home into the 24-room Coco Palms Lodge.
Its $5 rate included use of a common kitchen, while a small cafe offered three meals a day.
One year after Alfred Hills died in 1953, his wife sold their lodge to Lyle Guslander.
Guslander’s wife, Grace Buscher Guslander, would transform Hills’ lodge into the world famous Coco Palms Hotel.
