Yamashiro Ace Hardware: Six Decades of "Yes, We Can" on the Windward Side

Kaneohe, HI — Along Kamehameha Highway in Kaneohe, past the strip malls and drive-throughs, sits a hardware store that has outlasted nearly every big-box competitor that has tried to muscle into Windward Oahu. Yamashiro Ace Hardware, known officially as Yamashiro Building Supply, Inc., has been the neighborhood's go-to for lumber, tools, paint and propane since 1965 — and it's still run by the family that founded it.

From Dump Truck to Distribution Hub

The Yamashiro name has been synonymous with Kaneohe hustle since the 1940s. Founder Edward "Ed" Yamashiro was born in He'eia in 1924 to Koki and Tsuru Yamashiro, who ran a fruit and vegetable stand on the site where JJ Seafood stands today. After graduating from McKinley High School in 1942, Ed worked as a taxi and trolley driver before buying his first dump truck in 1955 and launching a hauling and heavy-equipment business in 1957 — the seed of what became Yamashiro Trucking, one of the largest trucking operations on Oahu.

Ed formally incorporated Yamashiro Building Supply on August 12, 1965, pairing his trucking and hauling expertise with a retail lumber and hardware operation to serve the growing Windward community. The store later joined the Ace Hardware cooperative, giving the family-run business access to Ace's national buying power and brand recognition while keeping local ownership and decision-making intact — a model shared with Oahu's other independent Ace affiliates like Kaimuki Ace and Pioneer Ace in Haleiwa, Wahiawa and Laie.

Ed Yamashiro passed away in 2005 at age 80, but not before building a reputation for generosity, donating supplies for local causes throughout the Windward community. The business passed to the next generation: his children — Byron, Aaron, Dwight and Clyde Yamashiro, along with daughters Lisa Ann Tanaka and Patty Yamashiro-Hironaka — have kept both the hardware store and the trucking company in family hands ever since, with Byron K. Yamashiro serving as president and siblings Dwight, Aaron, Patricia and Clyde holding ownership and officer roles.

What's on the Shelves

Today's Yamashiro Ace Hardware occupies its longtime home at 45-552 Kamehameha Highway, next to Windward Mall, stocking a lineup that spans everyday hardware and heavy-duty building supply :

• Building materials — lumber and plywood, fencing, bagged and bulk aggregate, CMUs (concrete masonry units) and soils, including drive-up loads for customers who bring their own trucks
• Tools and outdoor power equipment — an authorized Stihl and Maruyama dealer with in-house repair technicians, plus Makita cordless power tools
• Paint — Benjamin Moore, Clark+Kensington and Royal lines, with in-store color matching
• Outdoor living — Big Green Egg, Traeger and Weber grills and smokers, catering to Windward Oahu's active backyard barbecue scene
• Plumbing, housewares, automotive and lawn & garden rounding out a product mix built for both weekend DIYers and working contractors
• Propane refills — tank filling (though not exchanges) available during business hours The store is open seven days a week: Monday through Friday 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with propane and aggregate services starting and ending 15 minutes inside those hours

A Community Fixture, Not Just a Store

"We are not just a hardware store, we are a community," the company says on its website — a line that shows up again and again in how Windward residents talk about the place . One Google review, featured on the company's own site, praises service that's "always with Aloha" .

That community-first ethos traces directly back to Ed Yamashiro's own habits: donating paint for an anti-graffiti mural project, supplying materials for Eagle Scout builds, and providing candy for the Kaneohe Christmas Parade — contributions so consistent that parade organizers once tried to name him grand marshal, an honor he was too humble to accept in person. The store continues to support local causes and youth programs on the Windward side.

The Bigger Picture

Yamashiro's staying power is notable in a Windward Oahu retail landscape that has seen national chains and other lumber yards come and go. Where a big-box competitor might rotate managers every few years, Yamashiro's counter staff — several of them extended family — have stuck around for decades, a fact regulars cite as the reason they keep coming back for a store run of PVC fittings instead of driving to a warehouse store in town.

With 60 years now behind it, the business stands as a case study in how a single truckload-of-sponges idea — the kind of buying-power logic that built the national Ace Hardware cooperative itself — can work just as well at neighborhood scale: local ownership, personal relationships and just enough scale to keep the shelves stocked with what a working island community actually needs.

At a Glance