We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Loydd and Joy Waki a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Loydd and Joy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

We’re sure like with many small businesses, we give a whole lot of time, thought and energy into our products. We make gourmet Hawaiian shave ice using real-fruit syrups that we make ourselves. It’s definitely not the most profitable and it’s incredibly time consuming, but serving something that we’re proud of, something that we’re actually really excited to share with others, that’s more important to us. And we wanted to be different. Most shaved ice/snow cone businesses use the bright, artificially flavored syrups you can buy by the gallon from various wholesalers. But we wanted to stand out and we knew, especially coming from Hawaii that shave ice can be so much better than what’s typically offered in this industry. We believe that food in general tastes better made in small batches and made from scratch. So a lot of our menu items we actually make ourselves using high-quality ingredients–we do our absolute best to stay away from artificial dyes/colors, artificial flavoring and sweeteners and any unnatural preservatives for our syrups. We could cut a bunch of corners and save massive amounts of time and money in many ways, but there’s no pride in that. And because we have so many regulars and our customer are wonderful, many we actually became good friends with, we’d never want to disappoint them in any way. Because we’ve been so blessed by our patrons and this community we’ve come to have through our business, we want to always be able to give our best back to them.

And a really cool thing about being a small business and working the frontlines ourselves, is that we get to know so many people personally. And through this way, of getting to know others first-hand, we can help our community and other communities out in a way that’s direct and specific. For example, we’ve had a handful of customers that had family members affected by the fires in Lahaina, Maui last year. One weekend we did a fundraiser for these Maui families and gave 50% of our sales from that weekend to these families that we heard out about through our customers. So as a small business, we get to help and give directly to actual, specific people and not to huge humanitarian organizations like Goodwill or the Red Cross (not that it’s a bad thing to donate to this organizations, but they already have so much awareness and recognition).

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

First and foremost, we want everyone to know that Hokulani Shave Ice would not exist if it weren’t for Jesus. Everything we owe, we owe it to Him. He has given us the finances, the opportunities and the ideas/creativity that has allowed us to grow so much in the past 4 years.

Born and raised in Hawaii, we grew up on shave ice! It was the perfect treat for any and all occasions. After a hike or a day at the beach, it made for a cute dessert date, a birthday celebration, etc. Going to get shave ice was always such a fun outing for us, and it’s something you always do with a friend or family member. So it’s more than just going to get something to eat, they were tasty and memorable moments that we’ve cherished and collected over our childhood and teenage years.

Hawaii is paradise, yes, but it’s also a pretty small island. So having lived there all our lives we knew it was time to explore and experience someplace different. Before moving to San Antonio, we both had worked in the tourism industry, so we got to meet people from all over the country. Something that both of us (me and my husband) had noticed was that a majority of the kindest, down-to-earth tourists that we interacted with were from Texas! We’d often ask these Texans what Texas was like and most of the time their response would be, “It’s hot!” From there we knew that Hawaiian shave ice would be the perfect commodity for this Texas heat. And we knew we could change the shave ice experience for so many here in Texas because Hawaiian shave ice is very different from the standard here.

How are shave is is different: we make all of our syrups for our shave ice ourselves. We use real fruit without anything artificial (dyes, flavors, sweeteners, preservatives), and when possible, we actual love getting our fruit from small local farmers here in San Antonio and surrounding towns. So far, we’ve gotten locally farmed strawberries and watermelons and we’re hoping to build relationships with more local farmers that we can support!

What makes our shave ice even more unique and kind of mind-blowing, is the variety of things you can add onto it. In Hawaii, it’s very common to add ice cream to your shave ice. So at our food trailer, if you order ice cream along with your shave ice, we put it right in the center–so with every bite you pop in your mouth, you get that nice and creamy ice cream texture along with the flavorful and refreshing bits you get with the soft Hawaiian shaved ice. Our homemade coconut cream is our best-selling topping (to best describe it, it’s like a creamy coconut whip cream), but our other toppings do very well too like our hand-toasted coconut flakes, our homemade strawberry puree and our lilikoi (passion fruit) drizzle. We even make a dark chocolate shell that hardens when poured over your shave ice.

We love our business, we love what we sell and there’s no compromising on the quality as long as we’re in charge. That’s one of the things that keeps us going–is the joy we have offering a product that we love so much. If you’re selling something you yourself doesn’t like, then you’re just doing it for the money. Money can get you places, but it will only take you so far. And when companies and businesses start chasing money, that’s when the quality goes down.

We’re so strict and intentional on what we sell. If we’re testing out a new item or recipe in the kitchen and we personally don’t like the end result, we won’t sell it until we love it ourselves. If we’re researching a new topping to go with our shave ice, we’ll make sure that topping complements a majority of other items on the menu.

Other than quality, customer service is our other top priority. Everyday we’re out selling, we have the opportunity to uplift or change someone’s day for the better–so why not do that? A smile and a simple conversation doesn’t take much and it doesn’t cost anything and it goes so, so far in terms of shifting moods and boosting emotions. We’ve had the privilege of getting to know so many people through our business and we’ve made friends with so many customers. This is what life is all about! Building relationships and seeing God working in ways we could never even imagine.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

At least to us, the amount of return customers we get and how often they come, it’s unbelievable. There is not a single day when we’re open that we do not have a return customer–thank you, Jesus!

We think, well, one, you have to have a good product. And it has to be consistent in terms of quality, presentation, etc. Secondly, we think people will never get tired of great customer service. Especially in today’s world where not only has great customer service has become less and less, but customer service in general has been replaced with computers and self-service machines. Now more than ever, people are refreshed and rejuvenated with a simple smile, a meaningful conversation and thoughtful consideration and encouragement. To us, it doesn’t matter how fast or efficient a machine can be, it will never compare to genuine and caring human interaction.

Any advice for managing a team?

1) We think it’s great to play into each persons strength(s) along with their personal experiences and to pair that with others who might seek improvement in that same area of business and/or personal growth. For example, some people thrive chatting with new people so we’d place them face to face with the customers like a cashier position to help build rapport and pair the other worker in a work station nearby to hear and see how the conversation flows and examples of what they could say. 2) Another thing we like to do are work bonding outings like sand volleyball, bowling, and cookouts. We make sure everything is paid for for them and their invited guest. We know that time working with us means time away from friends and loved ones so we like to show our gratitude to those extended friends and family as well.
3) We like each person to have their own stamp on the company so we ask them to personalize new specials for our menu and we name it after them to give credit where credit is due. We want to make sure that our team gets to experience that special feeling we get when a customer takes their first bite and their eyes look like they’re about to pop out of their heads and their taste buds are starting the worlds longest Congo line.
4) Lastly, we treat them all like family like celebrating their wins in life like graduations, birthdays, keeping updated with their family, asking how we can support their dreams, and seeing how we can support their goals and endeavors.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hokulanishaveice/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hokulanishaveice/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/hokulani-shave-ice-san-antonio

Image Credits
@fotografia_camina @film_by_bowman @hokulanishaveice