McInerny's was founded in 1857 by ship carpenter, Patrick Michael McInerny. He was known for dressing the residents of Honolulu in elegant clothes during an era when the
city was still surrounded by grass shacks.
In the late 1940s the family opened a new flagship store in downtown Honolulu. The store had a genuine Hawaiian feel, with their logo carved from Koa wood with the store's name in hammered copper letters.
Several years later, they opened the McInerny SurfRider Shop in Waikiki, also with a Hawaiian sense of decor. Eventually, they expanded to nine stores before they were bought by a Japanese corporation in the 1980s.
In 2003 the company could no longer compete with the growing retail competition and closed their doors.
