Maui’s most popular shave ice chain opens first Bay Area location

Franchise owner Monica Shiu, a Livermore resident who is opening the shop with her husband Allen Shiu, first fell in love with Ululani’s on a trip to Maui during a difficult time in her life. In 2021, her mother died, and she also found out her father had cancer. 

“I really felt defeated and it put me in a really numb, dark spot,” Shiu told SFGATE. “It took me some time to recover from that. My family and my husband encouraged me to take some time off, so we decided to go to Maui just to reset.”

On the trip, she had her first taste of Ululani’s, which reminded her of her mother’s favorite Filipino dessert: halo-halo, which is made with shave ice. When she returned home to the Bay Area, she couldn’t stop thinking about it and the connection it made her feel to her mother. 

“For some reason, I just decided to look online and I saw a franchise opportunity,” Shiu said. “And I don’t know why, I just went for it … It was something that I was able to do to get myself out of that dark moment and refocus my energy to something positive.”

Monica and Allen Shiu, who are both registered nurses, trained in Maui to prepare for the opening, where they learned the secrets to Ululani’s ultrafine shave ice and syrups made using local ingredients and pure cane sugar. Their youngest daughter will also be working in the shop with them. The Livermore location is Ululani’s third franchise in California, following the opening of a Stockton shop this past July and a Hollywood shop in 2022. The chain also recently opened a Round Rock, Texas, franchise.

Back in August, two Ululani’s shops located in Lahaina were destroyed in the Maui fires, SFGATE reported at the time. A GoFundMe organized by Ululani’s co-founder David Yamashiro raised over $180,000 for company employees who lost their homes in the fire and Lahaina organizations aiding the community.

Yamashiro told SFGATE that he has always had a “tremendous” amount of interest from folks wanting to open an Ululani’s franchise in the Bay Area, but he always thought the weather in San Francisco was too cold for shave ice. But since traveling to Livermore to train the new shop’s staff, he’s realized that doesn’t apply to the hotter East Bay suburb. 

Now, he’s expecting the Livermore opening to be extremely busy. 

“We were slammed for both our Stockton and Texas openings,” Yamashiro said. “Who would have thought that a shave ice company from Maui would have that kind of draw, where from the time we open to the time we close, there’s an hour wait? And it goes on for weeks.”

So, if you head to Livermore for the opening on Saturday, expect to wait in line. But with Ululani’s being declared the best shave ice on Maui by the likes of Hawaii Magazine and Bay Area Telegraph, it’s probably worth it.

“I can’t even catch up with my texts and my emails with people asking when we’re going to open and how exciting it is that we’re bringing Maui, we’re bringing the aloha to the Bay Area,” said Shiu. “It’s such an honor to be able to do this.”