Cheryl To received her degree from the University of Hawaii in Food Service Management after which she began working as a cook in various restaurants including Sanford’s in Mapunapuna.  She moved to New York in 1978 to hone her skills and worked as a cook at One Fifth Ave, later moving on to a management position with the restaurant and eventually helping the owner open a new restaurant.  While in New York, she also worked at Keen’s Steakhouse, a restaurant with a 300-seat capacity, as a manager and caterer for the restaurant.  In late 2003, she returned to Hawaii to start her own catering business, Pacifikool.  It was then that she found the Pacific Gateway Center and became a  client of the Culinary Business Incubator, using their certified kitchen to produce her unique ginger syrup.  She began distributing her product as a vendor at Kapiolani Community College’s Farmer’s Market where demand was so great that she began bottling it.  She then distributed her ginger syrup to gourmet wine shops including Tamara’s Wine Store, R. field, and Fujioka’s.  She has since expanded the distribution of her product to include the Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel, Next Door restaurant in Chinatown, the Kailua Farmer’s Market, and military commissaries.

Phaiboun Hongphao came from Laos to Texas in 1986 and worked in electronics.  Subsequently, he lived in South Dakota and Colorado where his 2 children were born, finally moving to Hawaii in 1995 when he earned his living for the next few years helping his sister with her vegetable farm.  In 1999, he met his current wife who also had two children and married her, creating a family of four children.  In 2004, Mr. Hongphao was introduced to the Pacific Gateway Center through a friend.  He applied for a loan through PGC’s SBA Microloan program and was granted a loan for $5,000 as well as given technical support and business counseling to start a small business making leis.  He used this loan for supplies and materials, and in the first year, he was able to make $5,000-$6,000; by the second year, he was distributing his leis to Watanabe’s floral shop and to another floral shop owned by J. Luo, making around $45,000.   In the following two years, he has been able to sustain an annual income of around $60,000.  In the spring of 2007, he was granted a second loan of $7,500, which he hopes will allow him to realize his dream of opening his own shop.

Mitchell Kalima had more than 25 years of experience as a chef in various restaurants in Hawaii when he decided he wanted to start his own catering business.  Friends of his referred him to PGC’s Culinary Business Incubator in 2003 when he became a client and began to rent space in the certified kitchen as well as receive technical and business training from PGC.  In the first year of his catering business, he and his wife had only 1-2 catering jobs per month.  Word of mouth referrals and repeat business from such venues as the Manoa Valley Theater have increased the number of catering jobs to 8-10 per month.  Mitchell currently has a staff of 4 and a full service catering business which specializes in large parties of 150-500 serving local Hawaiian cuisine as well as Japanese, Italian, Mexican, and other ethnic cuisines at luaus, baby’s first birthday parties, family reunions, and business functions.  Mitchell and his wife look forward to continuing to grow their catering business, and hope eventually to open their own restaurant.