"At 60 years old, all my friends, my age, are retiring," Kelvin Ro told HONOLULU Magazine in September. "And I'm like, really, what are you guys going to do all day at home? How about starting a farm, a shave ice stand, a lei store after 60? You're just beginning."
Ro has done all three. The newest is a shave ice stand next to his market at 3158 Monsarrat Avenue. It looks like a small seasonal add-on. It is actually the clearest sign of how Diamond Head Market & Grill has changed over the past year. The corner is no longer a single plate-lunch counter with a bakery case. It now runs on a weekly schedule built on two things Ro added outside the original business: a 5-acre farm at the base of Koko Head, and a kitchen crew that came from one of Honolulu's most closely watched restaurants.
The Farm Came First
Ro opened Diamond Head Market & Grill in 2002. He brought a bistro sensibility to grab-and-go food, and his blueberry cream cheese scones, kalbi and balsamic-tinged portobello sandwiches still sell best today. The menu stayed familiar for years. The kitchen's sources started changing in 2022, when Ro began growing salad greens, fruit and fragrant flowers on leased land in East Oʻahu for the bakery, the grill and a lei-making business.
You can see the lei side of the farm at the counter. The market's website advertises farm-fresh lei with selections that change daily, and it takes advance reservations by phone. HONOLULU Magazine also reported that Ro recently opened a lei shop in Waikīkī.
The flowers matter for more than lei. Pikake is the most demanding crop on the farm, and it ended up on the dessert menu.
Then the Kitchen Team Arrived
Jason Peel closed Nami Kaze in the fall of 2025. HONOLULU Magazine reported that within days he turned up at Diamond Head Market & Grill, bringing Scott and Shaun Motoda from his core Nami Kaze team. His first job was bringing back breakfast: fluffy omelets, roast pork hash, ʻahi and eggs. In April he added two dishes in his own style, a waffle topped with Mrs Cheng's Tofu and eggplant in a buttery sweet-sour sauce, and a Mountain View pork kim chee meatloaf loco moco.
"It's huge. It's a bakery, it's a market and a grill. And we're adding on two, three other projects to it," Peel told the magazine. Those projects came in stages:
- A Wednesday okazuya. Peel's pop-up debuted on Dec. 17, 2025. By early January, HONOLULU Magazine listed it as a weekly Wednesday offering from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. or until sold out.
- A rooftop omakase. Omakase at Hale Pikake ran from April 11 to May 31, 2026, as an 11-course dinner on the market's rooftop. Aloha State Daily reported a price of $175 per person, weekend seatings and 14 seats, with a rice-centered menu built around Hokkaido Nanatsuboshi rice. The ticket page now marks that run as over, and no fall dates have been posted.
- Farm programs. Peel said he would help develop the farm's crops, plus farm tours and educational programs for students. We could not confirm that tours have started.
Peel described his approach to joining an established kitchen like this: "I'm coming into their house. I want to take my shoes off and be polite. At the same time, I have my own ideas that I want to share."
The Shave Ice Stand Is Where the Two Threads Meet
The stand opened in September. It is the first new project that puts the farm and the market's own back catalog on a single menu. HONOLULU Magazine reported that the signature flavors use pikake, mango, guava and citrus grown on the Koko Head farm. Each one is modeled on something the bakery or grill has sold for years.
| Shave ice | Price | What it borrows from |
|---|---|---|
| Lemon Crunch | $12 | Ro's lemon crunch cake, with lemon curd sauce, vanilla ice cream and toffee crunch |
| Blueberry Cream Cheese Crush | $12 | The blueberry scone, using the same compote and cream cheese |
| Hawaiian Da Kine | $12 | The grill's coconut breakfast pancakes, with haupia sauce and pineapple compote |
| Rainbow | $12 | The classic rainbow, made with lilikoʻi, lychee and guava coulis in place of artificial colors |
| Pikake | $15 | Farm-grown blossoms cold-steeped into syrup, finished with fresh berries |
The pikake costs $3 more than the other signatures, and the farm explains why. Ro lets the flowers bloom on the vine and picks them at sunrise, when the oil content peaks. He then cold-steeps them into sugar syrup the way rosewater is made. HONOLULU Magazine notes that pikake is labor-intensive, scarce and costly to grow, which is why chefs rarely cook with it.
The cheapest option is the plain one. A traditional lineup of 12 classic syrups costs $7 for a keiki size and $9 for a regular. HONOLULU Magazine reported that Ro kept it on the menu for kids and families looking for an after-school snack. The ice itself comes from an industrial machine Ro bought about two decades ago for $10,000.
The Week at 3158 Monsarrat, as of Early October
Put all of this together and the corner works differently depending on the day. Here is the schedule as best the published sources allow:
- Wednesday, early morning. This was okazuya day as of January, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. or until sold out. We found no newer listing, so call before you go.
- Thursday through Sunday, 7:30 to 11 a.m. Made-to-order breakfast, according to the market's own website. That is a wider window than the weekend-only breakfast reported last winter and spring.
- Every day from 11 a.m. The shave ice stand. HONOLULU Magazine lists closing time as 7 p.m., while Aloha State Daily's report three days later says 6 p.m. Plan on afternoons.
- Any day. The grill takes online orders through Toast. Orders of 10 or more plates go through the phone line at (808) 732-0077.
Only Thursday through Sunday mornings offer both breakfast and shave ice on the same visit. A Wednesday okazuya run ends more than an hour before the shave ice stand opens.
Where the Corner Fits in the Fall Calendar
The market sits a short walk from Kapiʻolani Community College. That puts it next to the Saturday KCC Farmers' Market, which the Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau lists from 7:30 to 11 a.m. in KCC Lot B, with parking in Lots C and E. The market's 2025 refresh essentially swapped the selling area and the parking, which added vendor space and places to sit. In August, the Farm Bureau profiled two of its Saturday vendors: Poke Creations, which sells poke nachos, empanadas and papaya salad, and Spicy Ninja Sauce.
A few dates will affect getting to and around Monsarrat this fall:
- Oct. 11, Sunday. The More Than Pink walk/run by Susan G. Komen Hawaii closes lanes from 6 to 10 a.m. on a route along Monsarrat, Paki and Kalākaua Avenues. That overlaps the first two and a half hours of Sunday breakfast.
- Nov. 7, Saturday. The Diamond Head Arts & Crafts Fair opens at 9 a.m. in KCC Lot D, on the same morning as the farmers market.
- Nov. 8, Sunday. The Val Nolasco Half Marathon is listed on a route that includes Monsarrat, Paki and Diamond Head Road. The City still shows its permit as submitted, not approved, so check before planning around it.
Diamond Head Road can also close with no notice. On the afternoon of Oct. 3, fallen boulders shut it in both directions between Coconut Avenue and the Diamond Head lookout. The City sent an alert at about 4:30 p.m. and reopened the road just before 5 p.m. Hawaiʻi residents still enter Diamond Head State Monument free, with no advance reservation and no parking fee, by showing a Hawaiʻi ID or driver's license. The monument is open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., with last entry at 4:30 p.m.
Neighborhood conversations about these streets continue at the Diamond Head–Kapahulu–St. Louis Heights Neighborhood Board meeting. It is scheduled for Oct. 8, 6 to 9 p.m., at the Ala Wai Golf Course Clubhouse.
When we advise clients near Monsarrat, we follow details like these: which counters open which mornings, which Sundays the avenue closes, and which local businesses are building something new. If you would like to know how the corner's changes fit into the bigger picture for your street, Jenn Lucien is glad to help. Request your Neighborhood Market Review, and we will start with the blocks around 3158 Monsarrat.
