We are very excited to say we are OPEN for business, and couldn’t be more grateful for the community’s support. We welcomed 333 customers right off the bat. People were walking in the doors mere minutes after we opened them on Wednesday, July 13! We were also stoked to host MauiNow.com’s dining reporter on that very first day, who put together this video and article on Fork & Salad Maui. Please click the link and check us out! We also got to be on Facebook Live with Maui Now on opening day, which has reached more than 40,000 users and drawn 20,000 views!
It took us about three days to prepare all the greens, vegetables, fruits, proteins, dressings (42 gallons!), soups, stews and more. Now that we’re up and running, we are going through food like crazy and re-stocking with fresh ingredients any chance we get! We are truly blessed to be so busy.
Since opening, we have seen an average of 450 people per day, well above our initial projections. We’re proud of our awesome staff of around 20 people; they’ve been handling our lunch and dinner rushes beautifully, and have been working extremely hard. Since we want to make sure our Fork & Salad family does get some time to rest and play (=surf?!) too, we’ve decided to close on Sundays for at least our first month of business. We hope you understand, and will join us anytime between 10:30 a.m. and 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
We have a whole bunch of great offerings on our menu (get details in our menu video). Some of the fan favorites so far include: Smoky mango chicken sandwich, Thai salad, Cobb salad, build-your-own salad and definitely the organic Kombucha. We’re going though a keg-and-a-half per day, and have already become supplier Big Wave Organics’ second-largest account!
We are so happy to have such a fantastic community of customers, right off the bat. We already have regulars! Here’s what some of our diners are saying:
“This is what Maui was missing!”
“Thank you for really supporting local!”
“It’s such an amazing concept! The ingredients are on full display and you can try any of them!”
“There are so many options! We’re coming back tomorrow!”
We want to thank South Maui and customers from all over the island for supporting us. The farm-to-table movement is real and we are just happy to introduce a format that’s easily accessible to a broader market. That, and it’s been a lot of learning. We anticipated around 225 customers per day (as “busy” for the first month). We did 500 the second day! The farms are stoked as well! Please keep on coming in and making local a priority on Maui!