Farewell to Glazer’s Coffee

Photo: Sarah Burchard

IIt was love at first sight. The chess players, the antique cameras, the jazz blaring from an old radio. The barista could have poured me sugar-free lemonade and I would have come back. But she didn’t. Instead, she ground and brewed two cups of North Shore Coffee Roasters’ Alalā espresso blend and mixed it with steamed milk in a cereal bowl-sized mug with “No Coffee No Workee” printed on the side. I looked down at the mug. She had drawn Snoopy in milk foam.

Photo: Sarah Burchard

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

When Han was renovating 2700 South King Street, he noticed two men watching from the sidewalk every afternoon. They were local baristas, one of them a rival barista champion who wanted to open a cafe in the same spot. They soon became friends and taught Han how to cup and make great coffee.

Photo: Sarah Burchard

The name he chose was graceor thank you in Italian. But it was hard to pronounce, so he changed it. “I thought Glazer’s was perfect because it’s easy to remember,” Han says. “It had no meaning.”

Photo: Sarah Burchard

Once the store opened, Han hung a few Audrey Hepburn posters, and the rest just sort of fell into place. He left space for local art installations and let students doodle all over the bathroom walls. When customers realized he was interested in cameras, they started donating their old ones to complement the vintage decor. One day, someone typed something on the typewriter next to the pickup counter. Someone else typed a line below, and so it went on, with different people contributing to the growing poem like an exquisite surrealist corpse.

Photo: Sarah Burchard

Six years ago, Han brought on board Anna Takatori, the barista who drew me Snoopy. Takatori was a regular customer for four years before she was hired. She is as much a fixture at Glazer’s Coffee as the camera collection, so much so that customers often mistake her for the owner. Jazz is her contribution. “A few years ago, (Han) let me play whatever music I wanted,” says Takatori. “I was really lucky to be able to start every morning with my favorite jazz albums.”

Han welcomed Mō’ili’ili with open arms: college students with no money, people who wanted to play chess, writers, professors, telecommuters. For the price of a cup of coffee, he didn’t mind if someone stayed all day. He would even hold your chessboard for you.

Joe Mcclung, a regular player for 12 years, founded the chess club about five years ago with other regular players. “It was a great success,” he says. “Especially because the people who didn’t know much about chess at the beginning developed into very good players.”

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

Over the years, it went up and down. It was quiet in the summer when students were on vacation; in the fall when they came back, it was busy again. When Starbucks opened across the street in 2017, sales plummeted by 30 percent. During the pandemic, Glazer’s started off as takeout only, then returned to one or two tables with social distancing. I arrived just as it opened to secure one of those coveted tables.

As Mō’ili’ili changed, Han’s worries grew. How would he handle rising rents? Would the rising homeless population 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 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 his cafe to change character under new ownership, he turned down offers to buy it.

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

After 17 years, Glazer’s Coffee will close for good on August 23. Han is looking forward to the vacation. He hasn’t traveled in years and Alaska is his first choice. “I want to go somewhere completely different,” he says.

He more than deserves it. The vision he realized – a great cafe with a family atmosphere where all the regulars know each other – was bigger than himself. “Sam has really done a great job making this place feel like home for all the employees and customers,” Takatori said. “I’m so happy to have the best regulars. I see many of them every day, working on their laptops, having meetings, playing chess… I feel like I’ve seen most of them grow up, like this little customer who is now a UH student… Regulars aren’t just customers, they’re kind of like 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 getting lost in a new part of town following a painful divorce, and one of two cafes where I write every day. Han even hung books with my articles in them on the magazine rack, like a proud father. I’ll miss walking into a place full of familiar faces. I’ll miss chatting with Anna and Joe and then sitting down to work with my giant latte. There are dozens of good cafes in Honolulu. But none of them are Glazer’s.

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