‘Now was the perfect time to open another location’

Rich Palzewic

Staff

November 25, 2024

EAU CLAIRE – Due to the success of its first location in Eau Claire, Hawaii Poke Bowl Co-owner/Manager Carissa Brooks said it was time to add another location in the city.

Hawaii Poke Bowl had a grand opening for its newest location at 3803 Oakwood Mall Drive on the city’s southeast side last month.

“For this time of year – the slow time – it’s been going very well,” Brooks said. “We’re going into our slower season, so it’s always hard opening a business during the colder months. We’re receiving a lot of good feedback from customers about having the second location.”

Eau Claire’s other Hawaii Poke Bowl location, Brooks said, is located at 949 W. Claremont Ave. – a little less than five miles away from the new spot.

“It hasn’t seemed to have had an impact on the first location, which is always good because we don’t want to make competition out of both of our locations,” she said. “The first Hawaii Poke Bowl in Eau Claire opened in 2022, so it’s well established.”

Brooks said the two locations are “very different” in terms of traffic flow.

“Claremont is a very chaotic street,” she said. “It’s the one with all the stop lights and traffic and everything, so it feels like it takes forever to get from one side to the other. The newer location is more on the south side by the Oakwood Mall.”

Brooks said the nice thing about Hawaii Poke Bowl is that all stores are locally owned.

The Oakwood Mall Drive location is Hawaii Poke Bowl’s ninth location overall – joining the West Claremont location in Wisconsin, with the remaining locations in Minnesota.

“My partner and founder of Hawaii Poke Bowl, Owen Liu, and his brother, they lived in Eau Claire a while back,” Brooks said. “They own a couple of sushi restaurants in Wisconsin, and then they found this concept (with Hawaii Poke Bowl) interesting, so they moved to Minnesota to start this out – it grew from there. My partner and his family and friends all run the ones (in Minnesota), and then I run the ones here.”

The need for another Eau Claire location

With all nine Hawaii Poke Bowl locations in the same general area in Western Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota, when the topic of opening another store came up, Brooks said “it had to be the right fit for me.”

“Once I get this store settled, I’m sure we’ll start looking at adding some more,” she said. “But personally for me, these two stores with their locations are perfect for me. I can bounce back and forth between the two without much difficulty. If the new location had been an hour away, that would have been much more difficult to manage – I didn’t want that.”

With the Claremont location doing well, Brooks said “it was a fairly easy decision” to open another Eau Claire location.

“I am very lucky with the staff I have,” she said. “They work hard, and they do a great job to the point where I didn’t need to spend as much time at (the) Claremont (location). We began talking about how now is a good opportunity to look for a second location. The tough part is, a bigger city in Wisconsin is usually a solid 45-90 minutes away (from Eau Claire).”

As she and Liu were discussing another location, Brooks said the space near the Oakwood Mall became available.

“There is a lot of growth in that area,” she said. “It was really hard (to say) no to it, especially because Jersey Mike’s is over there, a Raising Cane’s is coming in and it’s really growing. We wanted to take advantage of it now before we missed out on that opportunity and someone else snuck in.”

Brooks said the new store was not a new build – “It was an existing building.”

“My neighbors in the new location, Verizon, and I occupy the building together,” she said. “It was the old HuHot location, but after it left because of COVID-19, Verizon took half of that building, and now we occupy the other half.”

Brooks said the newest Eau Claire location was also able to add “our first drive-through pick up.”

“With this Oakwood Mall location, we added drive-thru pickup because it was able to be an option with the build,” she said. “We did that and (also have) in-store pickup or in-store order. It’s a cool opportunity to see the mix of both.”

What is a poke bowl?

Brooks said the concept of Hawaii Poke Bowl is similar to other quick-serve restaurants, such as Chipotle – in the way food is ordered and served.

“Customers come in and order and pay for their food before they eat, similar to that of Chipotle,” she said. “With our concept, our menu gives a little bit of a variety where you can make what you want to eat. We like to describe it as a deconstructed sushi roll in a bowl.”

Brooks said Hawaii Poke Bowl uses fresh fish ingredients and lots of flavors and colors presented in a bowl formation.

“For those who don’t like raw fish, that is perfectly fine,” she said. “We have menu options that allow for a bowl that has chicken, too. We have cooked chicken, we have tofu, we have shrimp, eel, octopus and then also crab, which is nice.”

Brooks said a popular option for customers is to build their own bowl.

“That’s where it’s similar to Chipotle, where you start with rice, you get your meat, you get your veggies, etc.,” she said.

Brooks said in her previous career, she was a teacher, and she still uses strategies from her teaching background with her staff.

“I have my staff doing a November challenge right now because of my special education background,” she said. “The November challenge is, if a customer were to come in every day, how many days would it take for them to do a different poke bowl before they start repeating?”

Brooks said the number of days before repeating “is mind-boggling.”

“It’s like more than 50,000 days,” she laughed. “That shows we have a wide variety of ingredients to where a customer can really get creative with what they like to try and what they like to eat, which is awesome.”

Brooks said some customers might get overwhelmed with all the options, so that’s why Hawaii Poke Bowl also offers signature bowls.

“That’s where my partners and I have created bowls that go well together,” she said. “We have a bowl that’s fitted to those who like a little bit of heat, we have a bowl that’s a little more light and fresh, and then we also have a savory kind of bowl.”

Brooks said Hawaii Poke Bowl also offers smoothies – “they are very popular in this area.”

“What’s nice about them is that we don’t use ice,” she said. “We use our frozen fruit, and we blend it with the ingredients with no added sugar. Basically, it’s just fruit and milk, whichever kind you choose. They’re extremely popular in the Eau Claire area.”

Brooks said she thinks the smoothies Hawaii Poke Bowl offers are so popular because of the lack of options in the area.

“Of course, there are some other establishments that offer smoothies, but I think they use a lot of added ingredients,” she said.

For more information, visit hawaiipokeusa.com or find it on social media.