‘It’s been a great run’

It’s Tuesday

afternoon, New Year’s Eve, when two boys wander into the Wainiha

General Store.

“Hi Janet,” says the taller of the two.

Store owner Janet Mello smiles and says hi. A minute later, the youth are at the counter with a handful of items. The boys hand over a few dollars, then turn and walk out the door.

“Bye Janet,” the older one says with a little wave.

“Bye,” she says.

In the next 30 minutes, more people come and go at the small store just off Kuhio Highway. Visitors in rental cars stop in and buy things like cold drinks, chips and granola bars. They also ask questions. Lots of questions.

“Is there a farmer’s market nearby?”

“Can you tell us how to get to Lumahai Beach?”

“How’s the weather been around here?”

Janet answers them all. This is, after all, the “last chance” on the North Shore, as the sign says outside, where people can stop, replenish their food and beer supply, buy snorkeling gear, T-shirts and sunglasses. Five more miles, and the road ends at Kee Beach. It’s five miles back to Hanalei. So if folks need something, they pull off at Mello’s store.

“Some days I’m a tourist guide,” she says, laughing.

Many who stop in, she knows. They’re North Shore residents, family and friends and there’s an exchange of hellos followed by conversation. On this day, Tara Fankhauser notes the brilliant flowers near the front counter. On them, is a note: Congratulations to the hard-working Janet Mello. Happy retirement. Enjoy life.

They are from her daughter, Keani.

Fankhauser reads the note and lets out a little yell.

“Yay,” she says, grinning.

Mello, after 39 years of owning the iconic North Shore fixture, retired. New Year’s Eve was her final day on the job. She’s turning over the keys — well, giving the keys — to her son Kaili Olanolan and his wife Mandy, who will run the store. Daughter Keani will oversee the two businesses next door that lease space from Mello.

Fankhauser has handled Mello’s taxes for years. She laughed about the many times, in need of something, she rushed to the store after sunset and closing hours and knocked on the door.

Mello let her in.

“She’s been here forever,” Fankhauser says. “She’s like a rock here at this store.”

Mello admits life will be different — but good.

“You work so much in here, you just want to go home,” she says to Fankhauser. “I want to go places. I’m going to enjoy the island, I’m going to enjoy my home and my yard, and I’m going to travel.”

A trip to Asia is on the agenda.

“That’s my retirement present. And I also bought myself a new Dodge Ram,” she says.

The 63-year-old Mello dedicated much of her life to the store’s success. She literally raised her three children there. When storms blew in, when mudslides blocked the highway, her store was the place people rushed to for supplies. Sure, there were ups and downs, good days and bad. But through it all, Mello kept the doors open Sunday through Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

“We might open a little late, but we never close early. People depend on you out here and they know we’re always going to be open, and we are,” she says.

Mello and husband Michael bought the store in 1975.

“We sold a couple cows, my dad loaned me a couple bucks. That’s how we got it,” she says.

At the time, she was selling Avon and cleaning houses. She didn’t know then she and this little store would become one, that it would become, at times, her life.

No regrets. Nothing but thanks, actually.

“It’s been a great run. I’ve had a fabulous career,” she says.

The Wainiha General Store is nothing too fancy. Charming and cozy describe it well, a throwback to simpler days. It’s filled with the staples, nonperishable items, with beer and Snickers bars two of the big sellers. There are shelves lined with cans and boxes of food.

Signs outside pitch ice cream and proclaim that it’s the “Last store on the North Shore.”

Decorations inside include a boar’s head on the wall, a mix of beer signs, family pictures and a photograph of Hollywood handsome John Wayne, too.

But also inside that store are Mello’s memories. And they are priceless.

“It’s given me a good life. It’s helped me help support my kids and grandkids. That gave me great joy. It’s so hard to make a living on this island. It’s so costly to live here,” she says. “I see people struggle here, young people struggle. I’m just grateful my kids never had to leave Kauai.”

Janet always had one employee who filled in on her off days. Otherwise, it was just her. It’s hard work and long hours, lots of driving to buy items to restock shelves. Lots of lifting and moving.

“It’s not only a mental thing, it’s physical,” she says. “I’m hitting my golden years here.”

The store was expanded in 2005. The space where coolers stand with beer, pop and cold coffee drinks used to be the living room of the house where Mello and family called home. There’s an apartment in the back now and Mello lives in her home a few miles down the road.

Wainiha resident Sharon Leton says there’s no one like Mello, someone she’s known more than 30 years.

“Janet is just a classic human being and experience on the North Shore,” Leton says during a stop at the store Tuesday afternoon. “She’s offered all of us this wonderful little store through the years, she’s a smiling, wonderful person.”

In all those years, there was just one burglary, and that person was quickly caught and later apologized to Mello.

“We lived here at the time,” she says. “This guy, he was so wasted. He broke in a 10 at night when everybody was still up and heard the glass breaking.”

Never had an ATM, either

“I get asked that all the time. That’s just like inviting somebody to break your window,” she says.

Oh, and no pay phone outside.

“It gives people an excuse to hang out here at night.”

The success of the Wainiha General Store can be credited to Mello’s no-nonsense approach.

“I ran a really tight ship, I’ll tell you. I have maybe made some enemies for a week or two, but we always get back together. In a small town like this, you can’t hold grudges.”

There was a time, years ago, Mello considered selling the store, but the idea of turning her life’s work over to someone else, a stranger, felt wrong. Couldn’t bring herself to do it. So she waited until her children could step in.

“I gave it to them. I would never take their money. But I’ll walk in here for the rest of my living days and grab a candy bar and soda and never be charged,” she says, laughing.

One might think, what with retiring after 39 years, on New Year’s Eve, this mother of three, grandmother of 11, when she closed the doors Tuesday night for one final time, might have a big bash. Whoop it up at Tahiti Nui. Hoist a good many drinks.

Nope. Instead, she planned a small, quiet celebration with a few girlfriends. Overdoing things isn’t her style.

“We’re going to have our own little party in the backyard,” she says.

As much as she is looking forward to traveling and being with her family more often, she admits there will surely be days she’ll miss sitting behind the counter and cash register near the front door of the Wainiha General Store. She’ll miss saying hello and good-bye to customers, helping visitors find their way and sharing all the conversations in between.

“I love my store,” she says. “It was an honor to have this store.”