On the first Friday of every month, the galleries, studios, bars and shops of Honolulu’s Chinatown stay open into the evening and the neighbourhood fills up. It runs roughly 5 to 9pm, it costs nothing to walk around, and there is no single organiser — which is exactly why it is hard to find a straight answer about what is actually open.
First Friday is not a festival with a gate, a programme or a headline act. It is a standing agreement: on the first Friday of the month, the arts venues along Nuʻuanu Avenue, Hotel Street, Bethel Street and Pauahi Street open late, most of them hang new work, and everyone walks between them. Some bars put on music. A few shops stay open. That is the whole format, and it has been running long enough to be the default Friday night out downtown.
Two things follow from having no central organiser. The first is that nothing is ticketed — the galleries are free, and you only spend money if you want a drink or dinner. The second is that the line-up genuinely varies month to month, and any guide claiming a fixed list is guessing. Below we have separated the venues whose own websites publish their First Friday hours from the ones that merely appeared on the community calendar.
We also could not find any official source saying the streets are closed to traffic, so plan on normal roads and normal crossings.
These publish their First Friday participation on their own sites, and all three are free. Build the evening around them.
State art museum · 250 S Hotel St
Free admission, all ages, and the anchor of the whole evening. The museum normally shuts at 4pm, so First Friday is the only time you can see it after work. It has opened for First Friday even on days when it was closed during the day for a state holiday.
Official info →Gallery · 1041 Nuʻuanu Ave
In their own words, “our exhibitions are FREE and Open to the Public.” Lift access to the second-floor galleries and ramp access at street level. On-site parking is card only at $0.75 per half hour with no grace period.
Official info →Gallery and performance space · 1159 Nuʻuanu Ave
A community arts anchor since 2001. It uses First Friday for exhibition openings rather than keeping fixed monthly hours, so what is on varies — call (808) 521-2903 if you are going specially.
Official info →These appeared on the community First Friday calendar rather than publishing it themselves, so treat them as likely rather than certain — the line-up rotates monthly. Of the shops, Blank Canvas and Fighting Eel are the two that explicitly extend their hours.
1145 Bethel St
Shop · Extended to 8pm
1133 Bethel St
Local clothing label · Extended to 9pm
1111 Nuʻuanu Ave
Tattoo studio, live art · Evening
1038 Nuʻuanu Ave
Dive bar and upstairs jazz room · Evening into the night
Two floors, two moods: a tiny cash bar downstairs, live jazz up the stairs.
35 N Hotel St
Beer bar and courtyard · 4pm–2am
2 Merchant St
Irish pub since 1891 · Evening
This is the single most useful thing to know. Chinatown street meters cost $3 an hour and are enforced until 6pm on weekdays. First Friday runs 5 to 9pm — so if you arrive a little after six, the kerb is free for the rest of the night. Everything else is a fallback.
Chinatown meters run $3 an hour and are enforced 8:30am–6pm on weekdays. After 6pm they are free, and they are free all day on Sundays and holidays. Since First Friday runs 5–9pm, arrive a little after six and most of the evening costs nothing at the kerb.
Card only, $0.75 per half hour, no grace period — published by the gallery itself. Entrance off Bethel Street at Chinatown Gateway Plaza.
A municipal lot at city hourly rates, entrance off Bethel Street. The community calendar warns it “fills up early.” The last published hours we can find are from a 2016 Hawaii Theatre leaflet, so treat the details as indicative.
1255 Nuʻuanu Ave. Historically a $3 flat rate after 5pm, which would make it the cheapest evening option — but that figure comes from a 2016 source and we could not confirm it for 2026.
22 S Pauahi St, in the same building as The ARTS at Marks. The garage was sold in April 2026 and the buyer has not published rates or hours, so nothing we could find about it is current. Have a backup.
On the rail: Skyline does not reach Chinatown. The line currently ends at Kalihi Transit Center; station foundation work in the Chinatown area only began in April 2026, with a target of 2031 for the city-centre segment. Take TheBus — route 151 is the one named for Chinatown — or drive.
The trap is that most Chinatown kitchens close earlier than you expect, and the markets are a daytime thing entirely. These are the ones open late enough to eat after the galleries.
New American, local farm-to-table · 2 N Hotel St
Hours not published — call ahead
Regional American, tasting menu · 75 N King St
À la carte dinner Mon–Sat 5:30–9:30pm · tasting menu Fri & Sat at 6:30pm
Seasonal American tavern · 49 N Hotel St
Dinner Tue–Sun 5–10pm · brunch Sat & Sun 10am–2pm
Tiki bar with food · 62 N Hotel St
Tue–Sat 5–11pm · closed Sun & Mon
Cantonese and dim sum · 100 N Beretania St #108, Chinatown Cultural Plaza
Daily 8am–2pm and 5–9pm
Vietnamese and classic French · 1188 Maunakea St
Mon–Fri noon–8pm · Sat & Sun dinner only, 5–8pm
Computed rather than typed in, so this list is never out of date.
Individual venues can still deviate — Capitol Modern, for instance, has closed during the day for a state holiday and opened only for the evening. Check before you make a special trip.
The Honolulu Museum of Art stays open until 9pm every Friday, not just the first — galleries, courtyards, music and stargazing about a mile and a half from Chinatown. Adults $25, kamaʻāina $15, under-18s free. If the Chinatown crowds are not your thing, this is the calmer version of the same evening.
HoMA Nights →Full disclosure, as everywhere on this site: our own craft studio, KraftStories, is at 15 N Pauahi St — inside the First Friday footprint, a minute from Capitol Modern and the Nuʻuanu galleries. If you would rather make something than look at it, that is an option on the same walk. Everything else in this guide is listed on its merits and nobody paid to be here.
Venue hours were read from each venue’s own site on 2026-08-12; venues marked as listed come from the community First Friday calendar and rotate monthly. Parking figures marked as older are the most recent published anywhere we could find, and we have said so rather than presenting them as current. See how we verify.