Pinky’s, a Papaikou landmark, closing

Although the holiday season is a time of joyous celebration, the mood is bittersweet in Papaikou, where the community is mourning the impending loss of a treasured institution.

Pinky’s — the store at the corner of Mamalahoa Highway and Mill Road — will close its doors at the end of business Dec. 6.

“I feel sad. It’s a landmark. It’s Pinky’s. Cheap, cheap, cheap! Plenty, plenty, plenty!” said Debbie, a customer, quoting the store’s catchy radio jingle to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”

A steady stream of customers filed through the store Wednesday afternoon. Most said they’re from Papaikou, many said they’d shopped there most or all their lives, and all expressed sadness about the closure.

Colleen Aina, Pinky’s owner, said simply “it’s just time” to close.

“It’s been 25 years that I’ve had this company,” she said, adding she didn’t sell the business.

The store has been in Aina’s family, off-and-on, for much longer.

Her grandparents, Tsukomo and Ume Hironaka, founded it as a sugar plantation store more than nine decades ago.

“They started the store Oct. 18, 1921. They ran it from 1921 to ’60,” she said. “Another family, the Morigakis, ran it from 1960 to 1988. After some planning and buying and stuff, finally Pinky’s was born May 26, 1989.”

Aina, who worked in retail merchandising for Longs Drugs and in advertising and marketing for KTA Super Stores before setting out on her own, came up with the name and the iconic color scheme for the store after an extended vacation that took her to New Zealand.

“In the city of Hamilton, there was a three-stores-in one in the same building,” she said. “It was a convenience store, a restaurant and a nightclub. And it was the exact same color as this building. The building was a melon color, they had a blue roof and a hot pink trim. I just copied their colors.”

Originally, the store was called Pinky’s 5 Eight, and Aina procured the phone number 964-5858 for the business because it’s easy to remember.

“At that time, 7-Eleven was (open from) 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. I thought, I’m gonna call it Pinky’s 5 Eight because I’m open from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. every single day. Of course, after three years, things changed,” Aina said.

“When I started out, I was gonna be like more a traditional convenience store, copying, like, 7-Eleven or Minit Stop. But then because of my marketing and advertising background, I wanted to do something a little more exciting. I started carrying toys. I did Pokemon, the craze with the cards and the toys. I sold the Razor scooters when they were in. I did the fluttering butterflies. They were these butterflies made in China, hairpins and stuff. I sold them for 99 cents. Everybody else was selling them for 10 bucks.”

As a marketer, Aina strove to distinguish her store, hitting on the idea of selling fireworks for New Year’s a few years after opening.

“The fireworks thing was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me,” she said. “… Initially, at the corner of the store where the ice is, I put two folding tables. I bought pink laundry baskets, 12 of ’em, and I did a display right there.

“After a couple of years, I thought, ‘Well, if you’re gonna do it, do it big or don’t do it at all.’ That’s when I started buying more. I really didn’t know what I was buying at that time. I did the advertising for fireworks for KTA but I didn’t do the buying. It was crazy. This was pre-firecracker permit time. So, you could buy the wheels, you know, the 50,000, 100,000, 150,000, 200,000 (firecrackers). The first year I did that, I sold out the first day because I didn’t buy enough, so I didn’t have to wait for the next shipment.

“The customers would sit here and wait patiently for the delivery to come, and they would even help us offload the delivery truck, in order to secure their 200,000. It was funny.”

Although Pinky’s wasn’t the first store to sell fireworks in East Hawaii, it was the first to sell paperless fireworks once the county started requiring and selling permits for firecracker purchases.

“I thought it was a winner because there’s no permit needed. It sounds like fireworks. It looks like fireworks. And the best thing of all, there’s no cleanup afterward because it self-disintegrates,” Aina said. “My customers didn’t know what they were, so I was selling them for 99 cents. I told them, you buy it, if you don’t like it, you come back and I’ll give you a refund. They were coming back and buying boxes and boxes. That was the beginning of the paperless craze.”

If there is a silver lining in the closure, it’s that Pinky’s plans to reopen from Dec. 26 to New Year’s Eve to sell fireworks one last time.

“We want to go out with a bang,” Aina said.

One of the store’s clerks, Lana, described Aina as “a really great boss.”

“This store means a lot to her, you know,” she said.

Lana, a lifelong Papaikou resident, made it clear Pinky’s means a great deal to her, as well.

“My kids grew up coming to this store,” she said. “Pinky’s just boomed. We’re very well known for our fireworks, our manapua, our hot dogs with the sweetbread bun. Just seeing customers who come here every day, who have been coming here for many years, my elders, grandparents coming with their grandchildren and stuff, it’s really hard. We won’t be seeing them.”

Aina wasn’t specific about what’s next for her, saying she has “other plans.”

“In life, we keep thinking we have goals to hit, but it’s the journey. The journey is the whole thing. This was a journey here at Pinky’s, but now there’s another journey for me,” she said.

“The best thing about this business is my employees became my family members and my customers became my friends. We know every customer who has a dog. We know their dog’s name. We see them when they first move here. We see them get married. We see them when their wives get pregnant. Sometimes, they bring us the baby to show us. It’s unbelievable how the customers, who we didn’t even know at first, became our friends.”

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.