A sacred place,
on Volcano Rd

Ohia Lehua began as a small cafe under a red corrugated roof - the kind of place you drive past twice before you notice. What held people was never the sign, but the food, the art on the walls, and the way the rain sounds when it hits the metal roof.

We named the place for the native ohi'a lehua tree just outside the kitchen window. In Hawaiian legend, ohi'a and lehua were two lovers turned into a tree and its flower by the volcano goddess Pele. Pick a lehua bloom, the elders say, and the rains will come. So we don't.

Over the years the cafe grew a gallery, and then six quiet rooms upstairs. Today it's three doors in one house - a place to eat real island food, sleep in the clouds, and see the work of the painters, ceramicists, and printmakers who live in these rainforest valleys.

What we care about hasn't changed. Buy from the farmer, not the distributor. Pay the artist a fair price. Serve the coffee hot. Leave the lehua on the tree.