The Haleko Shops Ghost in Lihue

Haleko Road in Lihue is barely more than half a mile and is a quick shortcut from Rice Street to the Kukui Grove area. Many locals just called it “the mill road” because at the bottom of the gulch used to be the old Lihue Sugar Mill. There’s even an old graveyard down there. People will tell you that the road is haunted and some even refuse to travel that curvy stretch of road at night.

At the front of this road, on the corner of Rice Street lies a little complex called the Haleko Shops. The buildings were erected around the turn of the 20th century as homes for German plantation supervisors and their families. In 1972, Mayor Antone Vidinha was running for reelection and set up his headquarters in one of the buildings. After only a couple of weeks, several friends informed Vidinha that the building was haunted by ghosts. Not wanting anything to do with the subject of ghosts, Vidinha announced that he would be moving his headquarters elsewhere. When questioned, Vidinha said that his concern was for his campaign workers.

“Those poor people would be sitting in those offices,” Vidinha said, “Looking at the ceiling, just waiting for the footsteps overhead... and then they’d all be gone. I’d lose all my volunteer workers. That wouldn’t be good. It’s no good having spooks around.”

Former tenants of the building admitted that they’d never actually seen the ghost but heard the heavy footsteps that regularly walked around upstairs. When news spread that the mayor decided to move his headquarters, another former tenant came forward to reveal that the parking lot behind the buildings was once part of the old graveyard.

The Mayor’s administrative assistant added that not only did the building they were in harbor a ghost, but the entire complex was haunted. The Vidinha camp moved out of the building and into another office on Oihana Street all the way across town, but the relocation meant a whole month without a base of operations and Vidinha lost the election by only about 150 votes.

A year later, in 1973, the owner of a new restaurant, Casa Di Grillo, moved into the space that several people have claimed was haunted. While the owner, Tony Grillo, stated that the sounds of footsteps above him after the restaurant has closed and he’s there alone doesn’t bother him, he does find it interesting. He did state that other things had been happening as well. In one instance, he was cooking a pot of spaghetti on the gas range. He turned away from the stove to cut some cheese, and when he turned back, the gas had been shut off. “I know that there was no one else near the stove,” Grillo said, “Now tell me if that ain’t strange!”.

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