Maui Frozen from the outside looks small and charming, a clean white storefront tucked into Kihei’s Island Surf Building, across the street from the volleyball courts and the surf school. Upon walking in, the room is almost intentionally quiet: white walls, black checkered accents, a retro arcade cabinet in the corner and a chalkboard menu of “Maui Slush” flavors that rotate with whatever fruit is in season or available.
Before it became a brick-and-mortar, it was originally an idea rooted in nostalgia. Founder Jason Kashtan grew up in Boston, where the Italian ice everyone lined up for in the summer was lemon. After he made his own version on Maui and noticed how his family loved it, he bought a 1978 Chevrolet P30 step van and went around the island just to share that joy. They stopped at every lifeguard tower from the middle of Kihei to Makena — about 10 miles. They pulled up to the fire department, the police station and beach cleanups.
In terms of how that led to the start and growth of Maui Frozen, Kashtan shared, “I’d rather do that than take out an ad on Instagram or Facebook. Giving back and serving others became really the centerpiece of what the brand is.”
It has all come full circle. What started as Kashtan taking slush out to the island now flows the other way: much of the fruit that goes into his slushes is shared by the community itself.
“We get gifted a lot of fruit,” said Kashtan. “People call and say, ‘Hey, you guys need lemons? Do you need lilikoi?’”
The dragon fruit slush, one of their most beloved seasonal flavors, was born when a girl at a farmer’s market casually offered Jason her uncle’s whole harvest.
“I said, ‘I’ll buy everything you have.’ She came back with a truckload.”
Behind the counter, more often than not, you’ll find Kashtan, his wife Miyu and their 11-year-old daughter Quinn. Almost every part of Maui Frozen has been touched by his family. The original idea was a half-joke Jason made to Miyu after a bakery he opened with friends fell through. Once the slush itself was working, the family started building everything around it. When the brick-and-mortar build-out came, Miyu, Quinn and his son all helped.
“To see my girls sitting on the floor, one doing baseboards, the other painting, my son on a ladder painting above, me rolling sealer on the floor. To pause for a minute and look around at all of that is the most fulfilling thing,” Jason said.
That same intention shows up in the product itself. Maui slush is deliberately simple: three ingredients — real fruit, ultra-purified water and cane sugar — served in an eight-ounce cup for $5. Lighter than ice cream, fresher than shave ice. Every detail is studied.
“We picked eight ounces intentionally,” Kashtan explains. “It looks small, but when you eat it, you feel good. You still feel good after. Every little thing has a reason for it.” The $5 price has stayed put even as other shops on the island have raised theirs. “As long as people are telling us to raise our prices, that means they see the value in it,” Kashtan said. “We’re going the other way.”
The locals already know. Regulars stop in multiple times a week. Surf instructors come over still dripping wet. Two of them, Kashtan says, helped him understand what his family had built.
“One guy walked in, born and raised on Maui, and he said, ‘Jason, this is the most Maui place I’ve ever seen, without it being the least bit Maui,’” Kashtan recalled. “He said, ‘You don’t have waves, turtles, palm trees. There’s nothing in here that shouts Maui, but it feels like Maui.’” Another customer described the shop as “a neighborhood bar without the booze, and families are welcome.”
For UCLA students planning a Maui trip this summer, Jason hopes the experience translates as a local one, not a tourist one.
“Hawaii, for me, is the community,” Jason said. “It’s the kids after school, the people coming to and from work, the kids off the beach, the people playing volleyball, the skate park — all of it surrounds us right here. So when you come to us, you get a product made with integrity that’s really delicious and thoughtful, at a reasonable price, and you get the genuine, real vibe of South Maui.”
