A client at Paradise Enterprise center preparing food

People Develop Skills that Provide Opportunities for Self-sufficiency at Local Facility

This facility will serve as a "retail incubator" where clients can develop product and marketing skills. It serves immigrants, refugees and economically disadvantaged residents of all ethnicities. On Thursday, October 28, 2010, Pacific Gateway Center opened its Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Paradise Enterprise Center.

The nonprofit's mission is "creating and providing opportunities for self-sufficiency" to immigrants, refugees and low-income residents. It provides more than 20 programs in areas of support services, employment and training and economic development.

Located on the first floor of the Pacific Gateway Center, the Lemongrass Café opened in 2009. It has a rotating menu of ethnic dishes from a different region daily, and serves exotic lunches to downtown/Chinatown workers. The Lemongrass Café will also have a sales area where PCG clients can sell their food items and craft products.

The Center also runs a "kitchen incubator" in Kalihi. It opened in 2003 and operates 24-hours a day. The facility has 12 Department of Health-certified kitchens that small-business owners can rent either hourly or monthly to prepare and cook their food. Most are lunch wagon operators, bakers or caterers who cannot afford to rent or buy their own cooking equipment, much less a full-line kitchen.

Lunch from the Lemongrass Café.

For the past 35 years, Pacific Gateway Center (PGC) has been a portal for immigrants and refugees seeking a land which would give them the opportunity for a better life. To this end, PGC has developed programs and services that nurture the development and acculturation of immigrants and refugees. They also assist low income Hawaiians who have not had access to resources which would provide the freedoms that many have taken for granted.

The Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Paradise Enterprise Center building at 83 N. King Street underwent a three-year, $5.2 million renovation. It was financed in part by $285,000 in HUD’s Economic Development Initiative Grant monies and an additional $1,949,967 in Community Development Block Grant funding.

For more information on the Pacific Gateway Center and the array of services they provide to the community, visit the PCG website

HUD Community Development Block Grants are overseen by the local Community Planning and Development (CPD) Office