Saying Goodbye to Glazer’s Coffee

Photo: Sarah Burchard

It was love at first sight. The chess players, the antique cameras, the jazz blasting out of an old-time radio. The barista could have poured me sugar-free soda and I would have returned. But she didn’t. Instead, she ground and brewed two shots of North Shore Coffee Roasters’ ‘Alalā espresso blend and combined it with frothy steamed milk in a cereal-bowl-sized mug with “No Coffee No Workee” printed on the side. I looked down at the cup. She had drawn Snoopy in milk foam.

Photo: Sarah Burchard

Sam Han opened Glazer’s Coffee in 2007. He immigrated from Seoul, South Korea with his family and lived on O‘ahu for a year before leaving for college in the Pacific Northwest. “Before I moved to Seattle, I never drank coffee. In Seattle, everybody drinking coffee, so I start following and got addicted,” he says. When he moved back 10 years later, it was with a mission to open a college coffee shop. “I didn’t want to create something new. I wanted to bring the Northwest coffee culture to Hawai‘i.”

As Han renovated 2700 South King Street, he noticed two men watching from the sidewalk every afternoon. They were local baristas, one a competing barista champion who had wanted to open a coffee shop in the same spot. They soon became friends and taught Han how to do cupping and brew great coffee.

Photo: Sarah Burchard

The name he chose was grazie, or thank you in Italian. But it was hard for people to pronounce, so he changed it. “I thought Glazer’s was perfect because it was easy to remember,” Han says. “It didn’t have any meaning.”

Photo: Sarah Burchard

Once open, Han threw up some Audrey Hepburn posters, and the rest sort of came together. He left empty space for local art installations and let students scribble all over the bathroom walls. When customers saw that he was into cameras, they began donating their old ones to add to the vintage decor. One day, someone typed something on the typewriter by the pickup counter. Someone else typed a line under that, and it continued, with different people contributing to the growing poem like an exquisite surrealist corpse.

Photo: Sarah Burchard

Six years ago, Han brought on Anna Takatori, the barista who drew me that Snoopy. Takatori was a regular for four years before getting hired. She is as much of a fixture in Glazer’s Coffee as the camera collection, so much so that customers often think she is the owner. The jazz is her contribution. “A few years ago, [Han] started letting me play whatever music I wanted,” Takatori says.” I really was lucky to be able to start every morning with my favorite jazz albums.”

Han invited Mō‘ili‘ili in with open arms: college kids with no money, guys who wanted to play chess, writers, professors, remote workers. For the price of a cup of coffee, he didn’t mind if you stayed all day. He’d even store your chess board for you.

Joe Mcclung, a regular for 12 years, established the chess club with other regulars about five years ago. “It’s been really successful,” he says. “Especially to see people start from not really knowing too much about chess but then progressing to becoming very good players.”

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Some of the players are UH Mānoa students, others are just people who love the game. One is Iqbal Ashraf, a management consultant who lives in Mānoa and an OG member of the chess club. Ashraf has been coming to Glazer’s since 2013. “I have made great friends, done work, had deep discussions and arguments, played a lot of chess, made useful connections, hired interns and met celebrities here,” he says. “In some ways, I have grown up in this place.”

Over the years, business ebbed and flowed. Summers, when students were on break, were slow; in the fall when they returned, it got busy again. When Starbucks opened across the street in 2017, business dropped 30 percent. During the pandemic, Glazer’s opened only for takeout at first, then socially distanced tables began reappearing, one or two at a time. I’d time my arrival for right when they opened to grab one of those coveted tables.

As Mō‘ili‘ili changed, Han’s worries grew. How would he handle rising rents? Would the increasing number of houseless people scare away customers? Would Kamehameha Schools redevelop the block? Rent is now double what it was in 2007, he says, and expenses like cups, straws and credit card transaction fees have tripled. When he found out that Honolulu Coffee Co. was taking over the old Kōkua Market space across the street, Han decided not to renew his lease. Not wanting to see his coffee shop change character under a new owner, he declined offers to purchase the business.

Anna Takatori, Sarah Burchard, Sam Han. Photo: Sarah Burchard

So after 17 years, Glazer’s Coffee will close forever after Aug. 23. Han is excited to go on vacation. He hasn’t traveled in years, and Alaska is his first choice. “I want to go somewhere totally different,” he says.

He’s more than earned it. The vision he achieved—a great coffee shop with a family-like atmosphere, where all the regulars know each other—was bigger than himself. “Sam seriously did a great job making this place feel like a home for all the employees and customers,” Takatori said.  “I am so pleased to have the best regulars. Many of them I see every day, working on their laptops, having meetings, playing chess … I feel like I’ve seen most of them growing up, like this little girl customer who is now a UH student … Regulars are not just customers, but close to family.”

Photo: Sarah Burchard

That’s how I’ll remember it. For me, Glazer’s Coffee was a second home. It was a refuge after a painful divorce left me lost in a new side of town, and one of two coffee shops where I write every day. Han even hung publications with my articles in them on the magazine rack, like a proud parent. I’ll miss walking into a place full of familiar faces. I’ll miss chatting with Anna and Joe, then sitting down to work with my giant latté. There are dozens of good coffee shops in Honolulu. But none of them is Glazer’s.

Open Monday to Friday 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., 2700 S. King St.