If you live at the resort or in the surrounding neighborhoods, you have probably noticed that a walk through Queens' MarketPlace looks different than it did last summer. New signage in bays that sat quiet for years. Different crowds at different hours. A construction fence at the sister center down the road.
The easy story is "new shops opened." The more interesting story, and the one worth understanding if you spend your weekends here, is that the resort's center of gravity has quietly slid. Kings' Shops, the longtime anchor, is deep into a 35th-anniversary renovation. Queens' MarketPlace, across Waikoloa Beach Drive, has taken advantage of the moment and leased up faster than at any point in recent memory. For residents, the practical result is that the evening routine, the coffee stop, and the after-work drink have all moved.
A Timeline Of Openings At Queens' MarketPlace
The pace matters here. Six tenants opened in a rolling wave through late 2025 and early 2026, and more are still landing.
- September 2025 — KoaWood Ranch, a Hawai‘i lifestyle store featuring sustainably harvested koa wood products, and Pacific Skin Institute, offering adult and pediatric medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology, both opened.
- October 2025 — Tommy Bahama's first Marlin Bar on the Big Island opened, with full-service dining, island-inspired cocktails, and a retail shop of the brand's apparel and home goods. Pono Pastries, a small-batch doughnut shop with local flavors and local sourcing, opened the same month.
- Early 2026 — Patina, a new American gastropub led by Chef Keith Pajinag, opened at Queens' Marketplace pairing elevated comfort dishes with craft cocktails. Kona Biscuit Co. opened for breakfast and lunch with handmade biscuits and locally roasted coffee, and in the evenings the same space becomes The Roost, an elevated dinner concept with Hawai'i regional steakhouse flavors.
- Still coming — Snorkel Bob's is set to open in early 2026 with snorkel and dive equipment, beach gear, and outdoor essentials.
Read that list again with a resident's eye. A dermatology clinic. A dedicated koa retailer. A doughnut shop. A gastropub with a chef-driven menu. A café that flips into a steakhouse after 5 p.m. The mix is not aimed at cruise-day foot traffic. It is aimed at people who live here and want a reason to come back on a Tuesday.
That is not an accident. Alexander & Baldwin leasing manager Matt Schull described leasing activity at the shopping center as "especially strong, driven by both local entrepreneurs and national brands looking to establish a presence on Hawai'i Island."
What The Kings' Shops Renovation Actually Means This Year
Across the street, the resort's other center is under a different kind of pressure. The Kings' Shops renovation project will update common areas, landscaping, and restrooms, and construction is being staged so retailers and restaurants remain accessible throughout the work. In practice that means the courtyard fountains, the lakeside seating, and the walkways you know are all in flux at different times, while Roy's, Foster's Kitchen, A-Bay's Island Grill, Island Fish & Chips, Tiffany & Co., lululemon, and Tori Richard stay open behind the scaffolding.
"As we mark 35 years in 2026, possibility is in full bloom as this renovation re-creates a sense of place."
That comment from Kings' Shops general manager Lynn Rostau is more telling than the usual renovation announcement. The reference point is 1991, when the center opened as part of the original Waikoloa Beach Resort master plan. A refresh at 35 is a signal that ownership expects the center to compete for another decade, not coast on nostalgia. For anyone who owns a home nearby, that is worth registering. The two centers are now investing on parallel tracks rather than one drifting while the other draws.
For the rest of 2026, the practical impact for residents is small but real. Some familiar corners of Kings' Shops will be closed to walking traffic at different points. Parking flows have shifted. Evening events at the center have not paused, but the visual center of the resort right now is unmistakably Queens'.
Where Evening Programming Landed
The shift shows up most clearly after dark. Three venues carry the calendar between them, and each has a distinct role.
Queens' MarketPlace, Coronation Pavilion. Queens' Marketplace runs a weekly calendar of free island entertainment at the open-air Coronation Pavilion, from movies under the stars to Hawaiian quilting class, hula lessons, chocolate tasting, group bike rides, ukulele lessons, and Hawaiian music concerts. With Patina and The Roost now anchoring dinner, the pavilion has effectively become a pre- and post-dinner living room.
Kings' Shops. Even under renovation, the programming here holds. Kings' Shops continues to run live entertainment, weekly farmers markets, monthly night market events, fine art galleries, and full-service restaurants including Roy's Waikoloa Bar & Grill by Chef Roy Yamaguchi, Foster's Kitchen, and A-Bay's Island Grill. Free guided petroglyph tours led by a local volunteer resumed with a brief history of the area, mana, puka, and King Kamehameha's King's Trail, and are scheduled Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:30. That petroglyph field, tucked behind the center, is one of the most under-used amenities in the resort for people who actually live here.
Waikoloa Stables. Off the resort proper but close enough to fold into a weekend, Paniolo Legends Under the Lights is a monthly summer residency at the historic Waikōloa Stables that blends horsemanship with live music, open-air bars, and a long-table BBQ feast under the arena lights. This is the newer entry in the local calendar, and it fills a gap the resort centers cannot: an evening rooted in paniolo culture rather than retail.
Three venues, three registers. That is the read residents should hold in their heads when out-of-town family visits and asks what there is to do at night.
Still To Come In 2026
A few dates worth keeping loose on the calendar, based on what has been confirmed for the year:
- Big Island Film Festival, Waikoloa Beach Resort — independent films, workshops, and starlit outdoor screenings, May 23-27, 2026.
- Lavaman Triathlon weekend, kicking off with the Lavaman Sunset 5K at Queens' Marketplace annually in March or April, with a course starting at 'Anaeho'omalu Bay and covering much of the Waikoloa Beach Resort.
- Snorkel Bob's completing the current Queens' MarketPlace leasing wave.
- Kings' Shops renovation milestones as common areas, landscaping, and restrooms come back online in phases.
The near-term picture is a resort in the middle of a two-track refresh, with Queens' delivering the visible openings and Kings' delivering the visible construction.
The Resident's Read
Here is the thesis in one line. For most of the last decade, Kings' Shops was the resort's evening anchor and Queens' MarketPlace was where you did errands. That relationship has inverted, at least for 2026. Queens' now has the density of new food and beverage, the room to add more, and the pavilion programming to hold a crowd after 7 p.m. Kings' has the deeper renovation story and the longer roster of established restaurants, but it is in the awkward middle stage of a 35-year refresh.
If you own a home in the resort or nearby, that has three implications worth carrying:
The dining bench is genuinely deeper than it was 18 months ago. Between Patina, The Roost, the Marlin Bar, Roy's, Foster's Kitchen, A-Bay's, Lava Lava Beach Club, and Kuleana Rum Shack, the resort now supports a full week of dinners without repetition, at price points that range from doughnut counter to chef-driven.
Free programming has quietly become one of the best reasons to stay in-resort on a weeknight. The Coronation Pavilion calendar and the Kings' Shops petroglyph tours are not new, but they are more relevant now that dinner options finally match them.
The two centers are pointing at the same future rather than competing on the same past. That matters for anyone thinking about long-term ownership on the Kohala Coast, because it is a signal that the operators believe the resident and residential-visitor base is strong enough to justify serious capital.
None of this changes the character of the place. The lava fields are still the lava fields, A-Bay is still A-Bay, and the sunset walk between the two centers is still one of the best free things you can do on the island. It just changes the answer to "where should we go tonight."
If you are weighing a move within the resort, curious how these changes affect long-term value for a specific street or floor plan, or thinking about how your current home compares to what is trading now, Leslie Oxley-Friedrich is happy to talk it through. Let's Connect.
