Maui & Sons has been one of my favorite clothing brands for years. I never knew the story behind the company — or the man who started it — until today.
His name is Jeff “Yoki” Yokoyama. Before the bright surfwear, before the bold logo, he was baking cookies. Maui’s Chocolate Chip was his first business, meant to make people happy. The cookies didn’t last, but the logo did and this is the reason the Maui and Sons logo looks like a cookie. That joy-centered spirit carried Yoki into Maui & Sons in 1980, then into Modern Amusement, and now Yokishop in Newport Beach.
Yoki’s thing is redemption. Taking what others toss aside — old uniforms, worn-out fabrics — and giving them new life. He’s been doing it for decades, long before “sustainable fashion” was a trend.
That’s where the parenting parallel hit me. We start with ideas in parenting that we heard from friends or read in books or how our parents did it. But we find out that many of those things don’t work for us (we burn a few batches or the taste or texture isn’t quite right). But the joy, the love, the intention — those can carry forward. We don’t stop making cookies, we just make the kind that suits our family’s tastes.
Our kids will outgrow clothes, toys, and even some of our rules. But they’ll keep the patterns we stitch into their hearts:
• How we speak to them when they fail.
• How we handle what’s broken.
• How we find beauty in what others overlook.
Jesus said, “By their fruit you will recognize them.” The fruit we plant isn’t just in the big moments — it’s in the scraps we redeem, the small stitches we make every day.
Purpose doesn’t always need a pulpit. Sometimes it just needs a parent, a vision, and a heart that still wants to make people happy in the right ways.
Planting the Fruit 