BanyanTreats opens in Lahaina
LAHAINA – Offering a variety of cookies and ice cream, BanyanTreats is the new name for the former Hula Cookies and Ice Cream Lahaina.
The name may have changed since Len Storey and Lisa Downey purchased the business from previous owners Gary and Crystal DeZao and Richard Murray this past spring, but the same great Hula Cookies and Roselani Ice Cream continue to be the main focus at BanyanTreats in the Pioneer Inn on the corner of Front and Hotel streets.
The Hula Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich is still the popular item on the menu, along with eight Hawaii-inspired Hula Cookie flavors, shave ice and about 28 flavors of Roselani tropics ice cream.
Storey and Downey moved to Maui from South Carolina, although neither is originally from there.
Storey endured over 25 years of subzero temperatures in British Columbia, working as a housing framer. His frequent vacations to thaw out in Maui always left him wanting to return. His wife, Lisa, a packaging designer and portrait artist, is originally from upstate New York.
They met in Seattle and decided to move to South Carolina to be closer to a (swimmable) beach and sunshine. But Maui still beckoned, and when they finally sold their house last December, they were here in a flash.
They were surprised and delighted to learn BanyanTreats occupies the very same corner that once housed the Pioneer Inn Theater’s concession stand, “Len’s Sweet Shop.” That was back in 1913, which would make it 100 years ago that the original Len was doling out sweets to moviegoers during Lahaina’s plantation era.
The couple remodeled the interior of the store, and they plan to add a few more treats to the big banyan tree chalkboard that is the new menu.
BanyanTreats is open from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, except Thanksgiving and Christmas.