Cool Cat Cafe and its neighboring restaurant Captain Jack’s Island Grill owned by Sean Corpuel and family were burnt to the ground in the August Maui wildfires.
Corpuel asked for the community of San Luis Obispo to help raise money for his workers who lost their jobs and houses in Lahaina.
The Slo community jumped into action coming up with nearly $200,000 which is being distributed among the 120 employees who worked at the Maui restaurants.
Now Corpuel is opening a Cool Cat Cafe in Kihei, Maui which is around 40 minutes from Lahaina.
The new restaurant is expected to be up and running by February and some workers have been helping to get the restaurant started.
“Bringing our staff over there…they're excited to get back to work. A lot of them have been there helping clean stuff up and getting ready,” Corpuel said.
Alex Rames worked as a chef at Captain Jack's Island Grill in Lahaina before it and everything else he owned burned to the ground.
He moved to California to work as a chef at the Cool Cat Cafe in Pismo Beach.
Rames plans to help open the restaurant in February and then come back to work in Pismo Beach.
“I'm so happy to have a new restaurant in Maui. I might go back to help over there for a little bit. I'm very happy everyone is getting back to work in Maui…all my friends who live there,” Rames said.
Workers in Maui are excited to be able to be with their work families again.
“Some of them have permanent locations, some of them don't, some are still transitioning out of hotels or temporary short-term rentals, so it will be nice to get a little bit of normalcy back where they can go in and have a place to call home,” Corpuel said.
Corpuel said they are still looking for a place for Captain Jacks in Maui and they hope that once they open the Cool Cat Cafe in Kihei, they can start looking for a new location for Captain Jack’s.
