Aloha ʻOe

There comes a point in a life’s work when you stop trying to explain the things that shaped you.

Not because they’ve lost meaning — but because they’ve already done their work.

I’ve written about care, attention, and presence in many forms over the years. I’ve described how moments are made, how guests remember, how rooms hold feeling long after they empty. But beneath all of that has always been something quieter, something harder to define and easier to recognize when it’s missing.

In Hawai‘i, we call it Aloha.

It’s often reduced to a greeting, a brand, a gesture meant to soften the edges of service. But Aloha was never meant to be decorative. It was never meant to belong to a place.

Aloha is how you choose to carry yourself when no one is watching.

What Time Has Clarified

Over time, I’ve learned that Aloha isn’t something you apply to hospitality.

It’s something hospitality reveals.

It shows up in how you notice people.

In whether you slow down when the room speeds up.

In whether your care feels practiced — or natural.

So much of this work begins before service ever starts. With who you invite into the room. With the people whose smile is natural and sincere, whose attention doesn’t feel rehearsed, whose kindness doesn’t require permission.

Technique can be taught.

Timing can be trained.

But care is something people either carry — or they don’t.

The World That’s Coming

We are entering a time when hospitality will be measured by efficiency, consistency, and scale.

AI will take orders flawlessly.

Robotics will deliver plates without fatigue.

Systems will optimize everything we once learned to feel.

And yet, none of that will answer the one question guests will still carry with them:

Did anyone see me?

The future of hospitality won’t be decided by technology alone. It will be decided by what we choose to protect as everything else accelerates.

Aloha is not in competition with innovation.

It is the counterbalance.

Why This Is Where I Stop Explaining

Aloha also means goodbye.

Not as an ending — but as a release.

I don’t feel the need to keep defining it, defending it, or returning to it again and again. What Aloha gave me is already woven into how I see the world, how I work, how I write.

Foodie has become who I am because Aloha taught me how to notice.

And now, that feels like enough.

Carrying It Forward

But Aloha was never meant to be held.

It was meant to be carried.

If hospitality is going to survive — not just as an industry, but as a human exchange — it will be because people choose care even when it’s inefficient. Even when it’s unnoticed. Even when no system asks for it.

Random acts of Aloha can be practiced anywhere in the world.

You don’t need permission.

You don’t need geography.

You just need to care.

So take it with you.

Into your dining rooms.

Into your kitchens.

Into the moments technology can’t touch.

That’s how the torch stays lit.

Not because it was taught.

But because it was carried.

This essay is part of Lessons from Table 8.

For professional correspondence, the author may be reached at wzane@intelhospitality.com