16th November 2011
Posted in Updates

You can read news on the Polynesian Cultural Center’s newly renovated and re-envisioned Gateway restaurant in our latest Envision Laie Newsletter. Redesigned to evoke the feel of a Samoan fale with wooden pillars and angular sweeping roof, the restaurant is adorned with shell torches providing ambient lighting and features one of the world’s largest murals — extending nearly 8,000 square feet and taking guests on a visual journey through the many cultures of Polynesia.

As reported in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser earlier this year, this is part of “a $38 million, five-year plan to refresh the Polynesian Cultural Center.”

This five-year plan…is “the first step in a multistep growth plan to help us get back over the million-visitor mark.” The center logged 1.25 million visitors in 1979, when there were no direct mainland-to-neighbor island flights and Oahu attractions’ visitor counts were high.

The renovated facility now has an expanded capacity of 24,400 square feet within the 27,000-square-foot building. The restaurants will serve authentic foods representing the center’s six island villages and from islands throughout the Pacific. Diners will eat amid ambience enhanced by “$3 million to $4 million worth of ‘wow’ factor,” including 25-foot-high murals depicting Hawaiian life and people arriving in Hawaii.