Scroll through recent reviews of Queens' Marketplace and you'll find two contradictory Waikoloas. One reviewer complains the center "never recovered" since the pandemic, pointing to empty storefronts and restaurants that only open for dinner. Another, writing around the same time, mentions a new doughnut shop hiring cooks and cashiers for a grand opening. Both are describing the same 35-shop center. Both are right. The mismatch is the actual story, and it says more about how this resort corridor grows than either review does on its own.
Here's what the churn actually looks like when you line it up: over roughly five months last fall and winter, six businesses opened at Queens' Marketplace, and two more followed by February. That's not a slow bleed. It's a cluster.
The New Names on the Directory
| Business | What it does | Opened |
|---|---|---|
| Tommy Bahama Marlin Bar | Big Island's first location, full-service dining and retail | October |
| Pono Pastries | Small-batch malasadas, cake and mochi doughnuts, Kona coffee | October |
| KoaWood Ranch | Sustainably harvested koa wood lifestyle goods | September |
| Pacific Skin Institute | Adult and pediatric dermatology | September |
| Oshima Surf & Skate | Second store at the center | December |
| Snorkel Bob's | Second Big Island location, custom-fit gear | December 20 |
| Patina | New American gastropub, craft cocktails | Confirmed open by February |
| Kona Biscuit Co. / The Roost | Biscuits and coffee by day, steakhouse dinners Thursday through Saturday | Confirmed open by February |
Look at that list again and a pattern shows up that a simple headcount misses. Half of it isn't a new business betting its first location on Waikoloa. It's businesses that already succeeded somewhere else on this island choosing to double down here. Snorkel Bob's didn't open its first store at Queens' Marketplace. It opened its second Big Island store there, after years of building a following on Maui and elsewhere on Hawai'i Island. Oshima Surf & Skate did the same thing, expanding an existing footprint rather than testing a new one.
That distinction matters if you live here and are trying to read what's actually happening versus what a scattered review makes it sound like. A brand-new concept opening its only location is a bet. An established brand opening its second location in the same resort corridor is closer to a confirmation, a business that already has the sales data from elsewhere on island and decided Waikoloa's traffic justified more square footage, not less.
Matt Schull, a leasing manager at Alexander & Baldwin, which owns Queens' Marketplace, put it plainly in a company announcement: leasing activity has been "especially strong, driven by both local entrepreneurs and national brands looking to establish a presence on Hawai'i Island." Read alongside the actual tenant list, that's not just PR language. Tommy Bahama picked Queens' Marketplace for its first Marlin Bar concept on the Big Island. That's a national brand making a Waikoloa-specific bet, not a generic Hawai'i one.
None of this means every storefront is full. The reviewer complaining about vacancies isn't wrong. Centers this size have turnover, and turnover during a growth wave can look the same from the parking lot as turnover during a decline. The difference only shows up when you check who's filling the spaces that open, and right now it's a mix of already-proven island brands and new local concepts willing to bet their first shot on this specific address.
Two Markets, Different Days, Same Two Blocks
If your sense of Waikoloa's food scene starts and ends with the Tuesday farmers market at Kings' Shops, you're only getting half the calendar.
Kings' Shops runs its market every Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with local produce, jams and jellies, macadamia nuts, and baked goods, plus live entertainment that draws people who came for lettuce and stay for the music.
Across the resort, Queens' Marketplace runs a different market on a different schedule entirely: the Queens' Culinary Market, held the second and fourth Thursday of every month from 3:30 to 6 p.m. It's smaller in footprint but deeper in local sourcing, built around vendors like Big Island Smoked, Kohala Food Hub, and Puakalehua Homestead, with a beer garden hosted by Waikoloa Shrimp Co. and live music built into the layout rather than added on.
The two markets don't overlap on days, don't share vendors, and don't advertise each other. If you only track one, you're missing produce, jams, and live music on the days the other one runs. Anyone treating "the Waikoloa farmers market" as a single Tuesday habit is working from half the information.
The Saturday Habit Most Guides Never Mention
There's a third recurring fixture in Waikoloa that doesn't show up on shopping center directories at all, because it isn't retail. It's a 275-acre remnant of native Hawaiian dryland forest, tucked into the same corridor as the resorts, run by a nonprofit called the Waikōloa Dry Forest Initiative.
The preserve protects ancient wiliwili trees, a species that once dominated this leeward landscape and now survives in only a fraction of its original range. The initiative holds volunteer restoration days on the second and fourth Saturday of every month, from 8 a.m. to noon, open to anyone willing to plant natives, pull invasive weeds, or maintain trails, no experience required.
From June through early November each year, that same organization also runs free sunset guided hikes through the preserve. This year's season runs from June 5 through November 6, with hikes starting at 5 p.m. and ending around sunset, cold drinks provided at the finish. If you've lived near Waikoloa for a while and never made it out there, the season is still running as of this writing, with a few more months left before it pauses for winter.
This is the kind of fixture that never makes a generic visitor guide, because it isn't built for visitors. It's a working conservation project that happens to sit inside a resort corridor, staffed by volunteers who show up twice a month regardless of who's opening a new doughnut shop across the street.
The Point
Put these three threads together and the actual story of Waikoloa Beach Resort right now isn't "new stores opened" or "some stores are empty." It's that growth here is happening through addition, not replacement. Established island brands are adding second locations instead of relocating their first ones. The food calendar has split into two separate rhythms on two separate days instead of consolidating into one bigger market. And a volunteer-run forest preserve keeps its own schedule entirely independent of retail cycles, still running its Saturday work days and its sunset hikes whether Queens' Marketplace is having a strong leasing quarter or a slow one.
None of that shows up if you only skim one review or check one storefront. It shows up when you track who's actually signing leases, which days the vendors set up, and which nonprofit keeps showing up on the same Saturdays year after year. That's the version of Waikoloa that residents build their weeks around, and it's a fuller picture than either the "everything's empty" review or the "everything's new" press release gives you on its own.
If any of this makes you curious about what's happening on the real estate side of Waikoloa, from Waikoloa Village to the Beach Resort, that's a conversation for a different day. For now, if you want a local read on where things stand in this corner of the Kohala Coast, or anywhere else on Kaua'i or the Big Island, Cheree Rapozo is always glad to talk story. E Komo Mai.
