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(Photograph by Rick Lui)
Following the slope of Baldwin Avenue, the Komoda Store is a commercial mainstay in Makawao. At the age of nineteen in 1906, Takezo Komoda immigrated to Maui from Japan. He worked for one year at Puunene Plantation and then went to work as a gardener for Mrs. Crook in Makawao. In 1916, he opened a general store at a location kitty-corner to the current store. Fourteen years later he purchased the present site from Mrs. Crook and commissioned this restrained Spanish Mission Revival building. It contributed to a construction boom in Makawao that added thirty-three new business structures by 1932. Rising from its concrete foundation, the single-story, single-wall building employs a false front whose chevrons and red tile roof originally accented the two entrances, one of which is now enclosed. The Komodas sold saimin (a noodle soup), homemade bread, and donuts in their store, but it was not until the 1950s, after Hikuo Komoda graduated from bakery school, that the bakery expanded into a major aspect of their business. The fourth generation of the family now operates this enterprise.