A Beautiful, Blooming Business on Kauai
At The Pua Bar, you can build your own bouquet, order a unique arrangement or lei or customize an installation for your special day.
By Natalie Schack
When COVID-19 travel and flights ground to a halt in early 2020, flight attendants Tasha Rames and Haylee Kam were faced with an unexpected sort of crossroads. What, for these typically high-flying women, in these low times, was next?
They ended up finding a pretty beautiful answer, in the uplifting world of flowers. The Pua Bar is exactly what it sounds like: A flower shop with DIY bouquets in mind, meaning guests craft their perfect arrangement by picking and choosing from the array of stems up for sale.
Instead of being constrained to pre-made choices, or stuck with ordering an entire box of each bloom, this personalized experience is both freeing and fun—and has captured the hearts of Kauaians in the last couple of years. While The Pua Bar started as a pop-up, the growing demand for more from the community inspired the duo to finally set up a permanent shop at Kilohana Plantation.
Now, pua business continues to bloom and boom—and expand. You’ll still find the beloved pua bar itself available for DIY bouquets, but The Pua Bar also provides arrangements and flowers for private events, weddings, and more.
Come before your wedding for a fun bridal party activity, or enlist the mobile pua bar for a baby shower or birthday activity workshop. In any event, the sky’s the limits for these newfound entrepreneurs, who continue to get more and more attention: At their shop’s one-year anniversary this past summer, the Mayor of Kauai even named August 21 “Pua Bar Day” in their honor!
Owners of The Pua Bar, Haylee Kam and Tasha Rames
Find them at thepuabar.com and @thepuabaron on Instagram.
