“Food is a very binding factor for people and probably because it’s something we all do.”Įverybody eats, and good food, especially, can change everything about an experience. “I think in a lot of places, even in the most disconnected or potentially dysfunctional of families, the holidays are always times when they get together and it seems to be centered around food,” Finnegan said. (Photo by Nathan Christophel/Big Island Now) Da Beans Green Café in Mountain View hosted a donation-based dinner on New Year’s Eve, The first two community members to come and break bread with the café were Kevin Jackson of Mountain View and Jinah Janus of the Pāhoa area, who are pictured here eating dinner Sunday evening at the café. They hope the flavors packed in every bite remind people of home.

They also had a vegetable tray on New Year’s Eve. They have served dishes including Caesar salad, honey ham and pineapple chutney, butter herbed turkey, kalua pork and cabbage, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, roasted Brussels sprouts, dinner rolls and pear, cherry, pumpkin and apple pies. The Finnegans cook up a traditional holiday dinner during the donation-based events, featuring menu items you could find on many family tables at Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. This includes their Big Island’s Best Breakfast Burrito, other simple yet elevated breakfast sandwiches and truffle avocado toast, and Hawaiian plate lunches. The café regularly serves up its signature one-of-a-kind coffee, made from raw green Kona beans, as well as traditional coffee blends, organic fruit smoothies, tea, fruit nectar slushies, boba and an assortment of mostly homemade food. “We end up having lots of play dates after we do these events because the kids meet so many families that they want to spend time with.” “They’re just having a blast,” Kimberleigh Finnegan said. “Why not make just a little bit extra and put it out there so anybody that’s hurting can come and grab a plate?” “Generally speaking, you make a big feast for yourself, your family or your friends and family anyways,” Phoenix Finnegan said about the holidays. They opened the store 18 months ago - an evolution of a coffee cart by the same name they previously operated in Pāhoa. In 2022, the couple began the donation-based dinners for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve at their brick-and-mortar location. Knowing the important role food plays for families during the holidays, Finnegan and her husband Phoenix, who own Da Beans Green Café in Mountain View, on Sunday served up a New Year’s Eve dinner - and traditional holiday experience - to anyone who passed through their doors, even if they had no money. She knows a lot of people on the Big Island are now having similar experiences, with some ending up homeless because of soaring rents and limited affordable housing: “Like entire families trying to live out of a tiny little vehicle.”

“I have a really hard time looking at a can of creamed corn without wanting to throw up.” “My family was super poor when we were kids,” Finnegan said. 31 during Da Beans Green Café’s New Year’s Eve donation dinner. Phoenix Finnegan serves plates of food to Kevin Jackson of Mountain View and Jinah Janus of the Pāhoa area Dec. Growing up in Minnesota, there were times in Kimberleigh Finnegan’s childhood when her family struggled so much that they ate nothing but bland canned goods they could find in a box in their food shelf.

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