hotelHotel Impossible · Season 7, Episode 7 · Aired May 30, 2016
Kauai Inn
Lihue, Hawaii
Yes. This one is still open.
What happened after
Adults-only 48-room property near Nawiliwili; official site and multiple OTAs active with 2026 pricing.
What happened on the show
On Kauai near Lihue, the 48-room Kauai Inn was struggling under a classic ownership split: the owners lived out of state while their son and daughter-in-law ran the property day to day, and the distance bred dysfunction. The episode, Malpractice in Hawaii, centered on that divide, and Melchiorri's proposed cure was structural rather than cosmetic. He argued the out-of-state owners should lease the property to their son, handing the next generation genuine control so they could stand on their own and run the property with real authority. A small island hotel depends on hands-on, committed local management, which absentee ownership undercuts. Anthony's counsel followed the show's recurring succession theme, pushing an out-of-state family to hand real responsibility to the people actually on the ground, because a property cannot be run well by owners who are never there.
After the cameras left
The Kauai Inn is thriving on the island. As of our 2026 verification the adults-only, 48-room property near Nawiliwili is open, with an active official site and multiple booking platforms showing current 2026 pricing, and it ranks in the top quarter of the island's several dozen hotels with well over six hundred reviews. Whatever became of the rent-to-the-son plan, the inn itself has stayed in business and in good standing more than a decade after the show. Confirmed operating as of 2026.
Sources
Confidence: high. Last checked 2026-07-19.