Drive past the far end of Waikoloa Plaza and you'll see it: a graded, paved, fully lit pad sitting empty next to a working Ace Hardware. For years, the story around that pad has been the same. Foodland is coming. Just not yet. If you've lived in the Village long enough, you've probably stopped asking when and started assuming never.
Here's what actually happened, and it isn't what most people in the neighborhood think.
The holdup was never really about construction schedules or supply chains. It was a lawsuit. In November 2024, Waikoloa Plaza LLC sued Foodland in Kona Circuit Court, alleging the Oahu-based grocery chain had backed out of its commitment to build the anchor store it had promised since the project broke ground. That's not a permitting delay. That's two companies in a courtroom over a broken deal, and it explains a gap that residents have been filling with guesses for going on three years.
What the court records actually say
The lawsuit appears to have been resolved. Court minutes from April 2026 indicate a settlement was reached, with Foodland agreeing to "build, open and operate a store" at the Plaza, though the same records note only that construction will start "at a commercially reasonable time." No groundbreaking date. No signage. Just a legal commitment that the grocery store will eventually exist.
That settlement came just a month before a bigger complication surfaced. In May 2026, Gary Pinkston, the developer behind Waikoloa Plaza through Meridian Pacific, filed for bankruptcy in the Northern District of Georgia. The filings covered several connected entities, including Waikoloa Village Lofts West, Waikoloa Village Lofts South, and two entities tied specifically to the hotels planned for the site, Waikoloa Village Hotel HIE and Waikoloa Village Hotel CWS. According to West Hawaii Today's reporting on the filings, the Holiday Inn Express entity alone carries over $236,000 in unsecured debt, with Goodfellow Bros., the construction firm, listed as the largest creditor.
Put those two facts together and you get the actual state of the Plaza's biggest promises: a legally binding but undated grocery commitment, and a bankrupt hotel arm with no completed buildings to show for it. The 140-room Holiday Inn Express and 110-room Candlewood Suites that Pinkston described in 2025 as serving the "upper-middle-class market" haven't broken ground, and the bankruptcy filings make it hard to see how they will anytime soon.
What was actually promised, year by year
The gap between announcement and reality isn't new here. It's been the pattern since planning started.
| Year announced | What was promised | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Foodland-anchored Plaza opening summer 2021 | Plaza opened July 2023, no Foodland |
| Feb 2025 | Foodland, Starbucks, Quick Quack Car Wash all expected in 2026 | Starbucks open, Foodland still unbuilt |
| Feb 2025 | Holiday Inn Express to break ground Q2 or Q3 2025, Candlewood Suites to follow in 2027 | Neither underway, both hotel entities named in the 2026 bankruptcy filings |
| Apr 2026 | Court settlement: Foodland will build "at a commercially reasonable time" | No construction date set |
None of this means the Village is stalled. It means the parts that were supposed to arrive together, grocery anchor, hotels, national chains, split apart. And the parts that did show up came from a different direction entirely.
What's actually open right now
While the anchor pad sat empty, the smaller storefronts around it filled in with the kind of businesses that make a place function day to day rather than draw a headline. Ace Hardware is open and has been for a while. So are Fitness Forever, Body Pro Physical Therapy, Manta Dental, MH Nail Salon, Eyecare Waikoloa, and Island Holistic Healing. Hawaii First Federal Credit Union has a branch in the directory. None of that gets written up anywhere, but it's the difference between driving to Kona for a filling and getting one done five minutes from home.
On the food side, SmashDaddy's 808 opened in early 2025 serving hand-smashed burgers, and Pueo's Osteria has been running long enough to become a regular reservation for a lot of households. Chef James Babian builds the menu around scratch Italian preparations sourced from Big Island farmers markets, and the restaurant takes its name from the pueo, the native Hawaiian owl. The Plaza's tenant directory lists several more restaurants as confirmed but not yet dated: Ikkyu Ramen, 4K Yakiniku, Churrascaria 808 Brazilian Steakhouse, Kohala Coffee Co., L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, and Popeyes. Confirmed on a lease is not the same as a soft opening, so treat that list as a "watch for it" rather than a "go tonight."
A mile toward the water, Queen's Marketplace quietly added two locally run spots this past winter. Kona Biscuit Co. is a scratch bakery and café doing breakfast sandwiches and locally sourced coffee. Patina, led by Chef Keith Pajinag, opened as a new American gastropub built around craft cocktails and elevated comfort food. The Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce confirmed both were open by early 2026. Snorkel Bob's is expected to join them, which will finally close a beach-gear gap that both residents and visitors have complained about for years.
The Saturday morning that hasn't changed
Through all of this, one piece of Village life has stayed exactly where it's always been. The Waikoloa Community Market runs the first Saturday of every month, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., with local produce, plants, eggs, bakery items, artisan foods, and crafts. It's a small market compared to the Saturday lineup down in Waimea, but it's the one that's actually in the Village, and it hasn't needed a developer, a lawsuit, or a bankruptcy filing to keep showing up.
That contrast matters. The parts of Waikoloa Village that depend on outside capital and multi-year construction timelines have been genuinely unpredictable. The parts that depend on a folding table and a regular schedule have not moved an inch. If you're trying to read the neighborhood's pulse, the market tells you more than the Plaza directory does.
What this means if you're already here
If you've been holding out on a second car trip to Kona because "Foodland is supposedly opening soon," it's worth adjusting the timeline in your head. The legal path is clear. The construction date is not. KTA on the north end of the Village will keep carrying the weight of the everyday grocery run for a while longer, and that's not a bad thing. It's the store that's been reliable the entire time the Plaza was working through its own complications.
If you walk or paddle at Anaeho'omalu Bay regularly, there's a separate piece of good news that has nothing to do with the Plaza. A stretch of coastline south of the fishponds at 'Anaeho'omalu Kapalaoa, including the Keahualono and Hi'iaka heiau and surrounding petroglyph fields, was permanently preserved and now sits under the stewardship of a Native Hawaiian descendant-led nonprofit. The open lava fields you walk past on a Tuesday morning aren't turning into a resort wing. That question, at least, is settled for good.
The rest of the Village is still being written in real time, one lease and one court filing at a time. Keep an eye on what's actually open, not what's been announced, and you'll have a more accurate map of your own neighborhood than most of the people writing about it from off island.
If you're weighing a move within Waikoloa or just want a local read on how these changes might affect your property's value down the line, Noelani Spencer has been tracking this market from the ground, not from a press release. Reach out anytime you want a straight answer about what's real and what's still just a rendering.
