By Leef Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 8, 2004; Page B01

For nearly 26 years, the Honolulu Restaurant has surprised and charmed first-time patrons, many of whom worried that once inside the windowless brick building on Telegraph Road, they would discover not an eatery but a strip club in disguise.

The quirky little Fairfax County restaurant, nestled obscurely between an Exxon and a 7-Eleven, offers wall-to-wall Polynesian kitsch and the kind of wicked-strong mai tais that have kept legions of faithful customers coming back week after week.

But these days, they come with a sense of urgency, and the wait to get into the Honolulu for dinner is nearly an hour as patrons line up one last time for a table and a flaming volcano. (That's a drink, not a natural disaster, although similarities have been noted.) They know the Honolulu's days are numbered.

Soon an expanded Beltway interchange will be built on top of the restaurant, a product of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge construction. With years remaining on their lease, owner David Chan, 65, and his wife, Anna, 59, were offered a chance to relocate the business. But they decided that retirement was a better bet, and they are negotiating a buyout package -- perhaps as much as the $50,000, the maximum allowed under the federal relocation act -- from the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Theirs is one of 11 businesses in the Telegraph Road interchange corridor being displaced as a result of the bridge construction. Saturday, they say, will be the Honolulu's last aloha.

And like the drinks, patrons are flaming about it.

"They're getting totally screwed by the state," said John Maxwell, 54, of Alexandria, who has been eating at the Honolulu -- known by many patrons as the "Chinese Cheers" -- for 25 years.

Clad in a Hawaiian shirt, Maxwell was at the restaurant Saturday night lamenting the closing of his cherished haunt, which he affectionately described as a "poor man's Trader Vic's," and the eviction of his favorite restaurateurs.

"I've had mai tais from Tel Aviv to Tokyo, and these are the best," Maxwell said, the strains of canned island music barely audible over the evening din.

"People are just really upset. A friend suggested we relive our '60s past and chain ourselves to the tiki totems" in protest.

Perhaps it's the wacky, tacky decor that makes the Honolulu so inviting, or maybe it's the effort the Chans make to welcome their guests, having watched many of them grow up. Whatever it is, the Honolulu, with its grass-mat walls and its undersea murals and Sichuan food, has become an Epicurean and aesthetic mainstay for car salesmen and federal court judges alike.

Upset they are, and willing to pay for a slice of the Honolulu's past. Each of the restaurant's decorations -- from the plastic masks on the walls to the carved coconuts that dangle from the ceiling -- were put on the silent auction block. Although many of the tchotchkes probably could be purchased retail for $5 or $10, customers were shelling out hundreds of dollars to take home tiki-bar memories and assorted furniture (even a fountain) -- to the tune of about $14,000 total, the Chans said.

One particularly Honolulu-crazed couple apparently has been traveling from their home in Texas, one week a month for several months, to dine at the restaurant before it closes.

For those who love the Honolulu, this sort of zealotry is understandable.

Michelle Jarrett Stapko, 42, said she isn't just losing a favorite restaurant -- she's losing a place where she celebrated and mourned the passages of her life. Jarrett admits she was afraid of the spot for years. "It looked like a place where people were dealing drugs," she recalled. But word of the cocktails drew her in. Drinking them won her over, as did the warm environment the Chans are well-known for creating.

"I had my bridal shower here," she said. "I cried over job losses here. I'm completely distraught they won't be here anymore."

Given its location and total absence of curb appeal, the Honolulu isn't the kind of place you just wander into. (Well, maybe if you have a flat tire.) Most customers said they were let in on the restaurant's allure by friends who knew. That's the way it was for Trish Jones, 27. As soon as she and her husband moved to Alexandria, friends began insisting, "You've got to go there."

So they did.

Eating dinner last Saturday with friends, they talked -- perhaps only half-jokingly -- about their future tribute to the Honolulu.

"Maybe we'll come to this corner every year and drink in memory of this place," Kate Fitzpatrick, 29, said.

Asked where they'd be eating next week, Jones was succinct.

"There is no instead," she said.

That was pretty much how David Chan felt. He got his start in the 1970s as a busboy at the old Trader Vic's in downtown Washington, eventually becoming a bartender and mixing drinks for captains of industry, even U.S. presidents.

The Chans say it would be hard now to find a new place at comparable rent. Perhaps, they say, it just wouldn't be the Honolulu in another spot. As for the future, plans are in the works to sell their sauces online and to local stores, and the husband of one of their three daughters is talking about carrying on the Honolulu legacy someday.

But now, although they are harried by the crowds since word of the closing got out, the Chans are spending the Honolulu's last days and nights as before, chatting with customers. The mutual sadness is palpable.

"Always the customers make me feel very warm," David Chan said, patting his heart. "Always."