Jelly's - Honolulu

[Random]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Sheesh. That didn't take long to get a response!

Coral St. Across the street from the Ewa end of Fisher Hawaii. There's no store front to see. Just one of a set of doors along the wall.

Well, it's been a while since we had a Jelly's near where I live. Back then I would have a reason to go to tourist-infested Ala Moana.

I rarely shop Jelly's for their music collection. It's their other stuff I waste my money on.

[mel]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

All the old record store memories. Luv em all.

Jelly's...

• First went there when Jellys was located in the old Light Store, corner of Keeaumoku & Makaloa.
• Next Jelly's moved to 404 Piikoi. That was my favorite location. Next to Records Hawaii and Job Lot.
• Then they moved back to Keeaumoku near the Korean bars across McDonalds.
• They branched out and had the Pearl Kai store near Tower Records.
• I never went to their Mililani Store, but there was one there too.
• Then Norm moved the Keeaumoku Store to Market City Shopping Center, Kaimuki
• Then I think it went to the location across Rainbow Records on University & King....
• Where Norm eventually sold the stores and they became "Cheapos".
• Norm still owned the name "jellys" and opened the Radio Free Hawaii Music Store in the rainbow building corner of Kapiolani & Piikoi. It was there that he won the Jellys name back from Cheapos.
• Cheapos closed about 3 years ago.
• Jelly's moved to the Aiea location behind Cutter Ford.

I went to them all except Mililani. My favorite was 404 Piikoi Street.

As for the other record stores:

• Froggies was first at King & Kalakaua then to the location where Nordstrom is now and then to the Like Like Drive In location.
• Interlude Records & Books - about 2 buildings Ewa of the old Cinerama Theater.
• Hungry Ear Records - there was one a few doors down from the Cinerama and then they moved to Makaloa St.
• Cheapos also had a store on Makaloa Street.
• Then there are the Tower Record Stores. We all knew those for many years.
• DJ's Sound City in Ala Moana Shopping Center
• House of Music also in Ala Moana. Their CDs and records were the most expensive!
• Records Hawaii, 404 Piikoi next to Jellys
• Rainbow Books & Records

The music marketplace has certainly changed. Only the big boxes like WalMart and BestBuy can afford to stock recorded music these days, and even they're stiffly competed against by the online retailers such as Apple's iTunes and Amazon.com.

Hard for the little Mom & Pop business to compete today. I think most young people buy (or steal) their music online.

[scrivener]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

I drove out to Mililani just to dig through the stuff. I left empy-handed; it wasn't very well-stocked, at least for my needs.

You're leaving out one fairly short-lived (but fantastic) used record store called Purple Haze, which was in the same building as the old Froggies, for a short time in the early nineties. It moved to a location in Kakaako, and then back to Kalakaua before it disappeared.

Oh, and Records Hawaii moved to that location on Beretania, in the same building as Owen & Owen Photography, where it seemed NOBODY ever entered the store, but I found some really good cutouts there at ridiculously low prices. I made it a weekly stop.

[mel]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Yep, I forgot that one and a tiny record store that was located right next to the Cinerama Theater in the late 1990s... and then another small store on Makaloa Street in the old HMSA building which now houses Honolulu Business College and a number of boutique shops. Shopped at the latter 2 but never went to Purple Haze. I think they did not have parking or I just never found them.

[gchun]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Boy, you guys are really shaking the cobwebs in my brain. Here's the places I recall. The name might not be correct, but the locations are accurate. Please fill in the holes or correct any errors.

Floyd's Guitars & Typewriter, former Love's Bakery now the super huge Safeway in Kapahulu (also in Kailua?)

Froggies/Jelly's at the King & Kapahulu, now a culinary school (same block as cinerama)

Froggies (maybe Jelly's) at King & Kapahulu, now Yakiniku Seoul

Jelly's at Keeamoku & Makaloa, former Big K and now Guardian Life Build.

Jelly's at Market City Shopping

Jelly's/Cheapos at Pucks Alley

Records Hawaii, 404 Piikoi

Records Hawaii, Kapiolani & Piikoi, now Sleepland (or some mattress store)

Jelly's in Pearl Kai Shopping Center

Hungry Ear(?)/Hot Wax(?) next to Baskin Robbins across from Washington Intermediate

Anyone ever go to KHPR used record sales in Ward Warehouse?

Thanks for the memories-
Garry

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

This thread is another reason I enjoy HT; the collective histories, meticulously detailed and shared. Thanks for the notes, mel, scrivener & the rest of you.

[mel]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Anyone ever go to KHPR used record sales in Ward Warehouse?

I'll never go to that one again! They charge admission even if you only want to browse and end up buying nothing. No thanks.

Speaking of charitable record sales...the big doozie of them all is the Friends of the Library Book sale held annually at McKinley High School Cafeteria around late June or early July. Besides tons of books for sale, the have a lot of record albums, 45s, cassettes, CDs, and videos for sale. Best to go early because it seems the best titles are around on the first day of the sale.

Friends of the Library never charges an admission, so if you don't find what you want, you never have to waste any money. The sale lasts about 8 days and draws in thousands of people.

[scrivener]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Yep, I forgot that one and a tiny record store that was located right next to the Cinerama Theater in the late 1990s...

Paradise City. That one wasn't bad but I don't think I ever walked out of there with anything.

and then another small store on Makaloa Street in the old HMSA building which now houses Honolulu Business College....

Oh yeah...can't remember the name of that one. I did get a lot of stuff there.

In the space where Cheapo used to be on Makaloa was once a Tower Outlet: All cutouts all the time! I LOVED that store, because so much of my favorite stuff is stuff that gets put in the cutout bin. I got a ton of Bruce Cockburn and T Bone Burnett recordings there. I was sooooooo sorry to see that place go.

On the second floor of that building on Makaloa that houses the Korean boutiques and the Internet cafe used to be a decent used CD store, but it was short-lived and I think that space houses a manga store now.

[mel]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Oh yeah. I used to love the Tower Outlet store. Lots of cheap records. I remember they were also dumping a lot of Laser Discs for dirt cheap too. 10¢ 45s were also a draw for me.

I think the store on the 2nd floor of Makaloa was the same one that was in the old HMSA building. They just moved across the street before going out of business shortly after. Like you I bought a lot of used CDs from that store.

[scrivener]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Froggies/Jelly's at the King & Kapahulu, now a culinary school (same block as cinerama)

I think you mean King & Kalakaua, and that was NEVER a Jelly's. It was Froggies for a really long time.

Froggies (maybe Jelly's) at King & Kapahulu, now Yakiniku Seoul

Okay, now this one shook me out of a cobwebby haze. I want to say that was Froggies in its second location, but why does part of me want to say that it was a competing store?

Records Hawaii, Kapiolani & Piikoi, now Sleepland (or some mattress store)

This one I didn't know. I remember that building being the home of a short-lived video game store; is it where Records Hawaii lived before it ended up on Beretania?

[mel]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Okay, now this one shook me out of a cobwebby haze. I want to say that was Froggies in its second location, but why does part of me want to say that it was a competing store?

That was Interlude Books & Records.

Forgot to mention there were a couple of record stores downtown Honolulu. Long long long ago on Hotel Street there was The Record Museum. And up on Union Mall there was a small record shop too, forgot the name of that one now. I bought a couple of LPs and 45s from the Museum but can't say that I bought anything from the one on Union Mall.

And then of course in Downtown and elsewhere there was Woolworth. They had a decent selection of LPs, 45s and later CDs... and the cut-out bin was an attraction too. $1 record albums and 3 45s for $1.

And since I grew up on the Big Island, I'll throw these in:

• MJS Music, Hilo Shopping Center
• Project 3 LTD
• House of Music - same expensive store as the one in Ala Moana but also at Kaiko'o Mall.
• Muntz Stereo at Kaiko'o Mall.

[scrivener]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

And then of course in Downtown and elsewhere there was Woolworth. They had a decent selection of LPs, 45s and later CDs... and the cut-out bin was an attraction too. $1 record albums and 3 45s for $1

At that downtown Woolworth I picked up some concert bootlegs on vinyl, sometime in high school. Couldn't believe it. The sound wasn't bad and I think I still have a couple of them stashed away. Jimi Hendrix doing "Money (That's What I Want)."

And since I grew up on the Big Island, I'll throw these in:

I grew up on the Big Island too, in a manner of speaking, so I'll add CD Wizard, which used to be on Kilauea near Kaikoo Mall, but was in the warehouse industrial area near Wal Mart the last time I visited. Spent too much student loan money there, and in fact my last purchase of anything on the Big Island before I moved away was a pair of Elvis Costello CDs from CD Wizard.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

I think you're talking about when it was over near the Korean night clubs in the early 90s, when Froggies was near Likelike Drive-In. I'm talking about when it was at Keeaumoku and Makaloa, right across Tower, in the early 80s.

I'm talking about when Froggies and Jellys were diagonally opposite of each other at the corner of King and Kalakaua Ave. Froggies on the Ewa/Makai corner and Jellys on the Diamond Head/Mauka side.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

• Interlude Records & Books - about 2 buildings Ewa of the old Cinerama Theater.

Aiiiieeee! You're right. I was thinking that was Jelly's. It wasn't.

With that list, I think my first time at Jellys was at 404.

OK now you guys got me going. There were two stores near Tower Records on Makaloa. One was on the Makai side, just the other side of Tower Video's drive way. I remember having to step down into the little store.

The other was located across Makaloa from Tower. In both cases, once you parked for Tower, it was worth walking over to the other stores to see what they had.

I don't remember buying much from either store.

[gchun]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Thanks for that correction. You are correct. It was King and KALAKAUA, not Kapahulu.

Sorry for that. Still brushing out the cobwebs, and there's more to be cleaned!!

The Record Hawaii on Kapiolani & Piikoi was after they moved from 404 Piikoi, then I think they moved to the Owen/Owen Photography studio on Beretania. Didn't they close for good after that??

That Kapiolani/Piikoi site was also home to Yamaha Music (30+ years ago) and Video Life (before it moved to Coral Commercial and now Ward ) before it's current occupant as a mattress store (Sleepland?).

I've loved Records Hawaii since they had the mainstream cds for a few bucks less than everyone else. Harry's Music was also a buck or two cheaper for awhile.

Garry