The owner of Masu's Massive Plate Lunch in Liliha is taking early retirement next month, with plans to close the longtime business popularized for naming specials after local celebrities.

Masu's will close Feb. 28 after 33 years, marking the end for another small kama'aina family business — one started by Paul Masuoka and his late mother, Yoshiko.

Finance Factors recently bought the building at 1808 Liliha St. occupied by Masu's and needed the space, according to Masuoka, who said he decided against reopening elsewhere.

"We had a really, really good run," he said. "I have the right to retire."

Masuoka, who will be 63 next month, said he had planned to run the business until his 65th birthday, but the move by Finance Factors created a good reason to retire sooner.

"I am just plain tired," he said. "It's really hard for just one person to do this kind of work. My mother worked till she was 87. No way would I work that long."

Masu's evolved from an improvised lunch counter at a catering business, and survived two moves, a bankruptcy and the loss of co-founder Yoshiko Masuoka, who died in 2004.

The Masuokas started the catering business, Livingston Food Services, in 1974 in a Kaka'ako warehouse. Lunch counter business grew so much that the Masuokas decided to give up catering and focus on selling plate lunches under the Masu's name.

Around 1980, Masu's moved to a site on Ke'eaumoku Street, and the business distinguished itself by naming specials after local personalities, including entertainers and journalists.

Masuoka said the idea came about after a friend suggested he ask celebrities for their favorite recipes, which he would then cook and sell as a specials. The plan didn't work out as expected. "There was the first recipe — and I won't say who it was from — it was plain awful."

But Masuoka liked the concept, so he created his own specials and named them after local personalities.

Around 1990, Masu's moved to Liliha after being driven from the Ke'eaumoku site with other small businesses by a development plan that later led to Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores being built on the site.

In the mid-1990s, after the Gulf War, layoffs at Pearl Harbor and a slowdown in construction hurt business, Masu's filed for bankruptcy. The company emerged from bankruptcy three years later.

Since his mother's death, Masuoka discontinued the celebrity specials and worked extra long hours to keep the business going.

Masuoka said it'll be business as usual until the last day, and after that he plans to volunteer. "It's a good ending," he said. "I don't want to see no rice, no macaroni for the rest of my life."

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com.