In The Premier Adult Beverage Aisle On The North Shore

If you’re looking for an alcoholic beverage on the North Shore, your options are limited. Like, almost non-existent. Across the premier zone, there is one place to buy a bottle or 12-pack to take home. There are no bars or restaurants (short of what’s inside Turtle Bay Resort), and the food trucks don’t have liquor licenses. The only purveyor of any sort of social lubricant is a slightly over-priced grocery store with the most fabulous name: Foodland.

Off the main stretch of the North Shore (Waimea to Turtle Bay) the next town over is a 20-minute drive, through Waimea Valley, on Kam Highway to Haleiwa. In Haleiwa town, there are a few bars, a few restaurants and minimal nightlife. You’re tough placed to find anywhere in the area open past 10 PM.

Due to this, Foodland, during the Triple Crown season, is the convenience store to the pros. It’s almost a social hangout, a space that you cannot enter without committing to several stop and chats, a few fist bumps and the same series of questions everyone asks any mere acquaintance on the North Shore:

When’d you get here? Where are you staying? When you leaving? You getting any waves?

So, in the spirit of the Vans Triple Crown of Surf being done and dusted. Gabriel Medina winning his second World Title and the Pipe Masters, and this year in surf competitive surf being over, we spent a little time in the Foodland beer aisle, photographing surfers and their beer of choice.

Here’s a small gallery to honor the good times ahead.

Some fine headwear on tap.

Nathan Florence enjoys a Stella in the evening.

The Palest Ale on the North Shore.

Anyone fancy a Mike’s Hard?

Dane Gudang and America’s sweetheart, Bud Heavy.