The ABC's of Hawaii's ABC Stores
There are More Than 50 in Waikiki Beach
A more familiar site than sand in Waikiki are the fronts of these ABC Stores.
There's a joke you can play on your fellow travelers in Waikiki Beach: "If we get separated, meet me in front of the ABC Store."
The joke is that there are dozen of ABC Stores in Waikiki Beach. More than 50, in fact, within the area's three-or-so square miles. There are 37 within a single one-mile area of Waikiki. (Counting ABC Stores is a good "keep busy" project for the kids.)
They are not only on nearly every street corner, but between the street corners, on side streets and in shopping centers. Quite often, there are two just around the corner from each other. And you thought Starbuck's was prevalent in Seattle.
A familiar scene in Waikiki is this oval-shaped sign over these stores.
ABC Stores, for those not in the know, are Hawaii's convenience stores. They have food (sandwiches and snacks), macadamia nuts, drinks, beer, liquor (even the airplane-style mini bottles), suntan lotion, cosmetics and all the little things that any traveler needs from time to time.
Prices are about what one would expect to pay for these items at a 7-11 or other convenience store ($1.50 for a small bottle of water, for example, that goes for 49 cents at your grocery store back home).
Yet they are also souvenir stores, selling beach towels, t-shirts, Hawaiian clothes, Hawaii-themed picture frames, surfboard-shaped clocks and such, all the way down to wahine dolls with swaying hips and other trinkets.
Prices for these tourist items are fairly cheap; sometimes decent-quality t-shirts are put on a table and sold for $5 each. Can't even beat that in Venice Beach. Most souvenir items are less than $20.
The ABC Stores, it seems, like to be the one-stop shop for every visitor/ In tourist-heavy Waikiki there's so much for a visitor to do, management figures it's better to have a store right there rather than have people spending a half-hour looking for a bottle of suntan lotion or a beach towel when they could have items in hand and be back on the beach in 10 minutes.
ABC Stores are clean and one big benefit to customers is that they are also identical. They sell the exact same items in every location so you know precisely what is in there when you go into an ABC Store.
There are, to be sure, other such stores in Waikiki. And sometimes it pays to do a little price comparison on items. For example, the ABC Storse sell a sandwich consisting of three small croissants with ham, turkey and roast beef for $9.50, while at the Coco Cove next to Jimmy Buffett's Beachcomber, the same sandwich is $6.50. Plus, Coco Cove has a full deli.
ABC Stores are a family-run business that have been in Waikiki since 1964. And locations have spread beyond Hawaii to other places, including Las Vegas (there's one in the Planet Hollywood mall).
ABC Stories are open 365 days a year from 6:30 a.m.-1 a.m.
SurfsideSam.com covers beach and tropical travel destinations around the world. © 2010. All rights reserved.
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