Highway Inn was created in September 1947 by a Japanese-American Seiichi Toguchi. Toguchi was born in Hawaiʻi, but raised in Okinawa, Japan. He was 14 years old when he got a job as a dishwasher starting the path to becoming a restaurant owner himself. Seiichi learned to cook Hawaiian food and eventually was promoted to cook’s apprentice. 

On December 7, 1941 the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor on Oʻahu. This event led to president Franklin D. Roosevelt signing executive order 9066 that incarcerated Americans of Japanese descent in isolation camps in an attempt to prevent espionage. Executive order 9066 affected the lives of more than 120,000 people in the United State. Seiichi Toguchi and his family were amongst the Japanese-Americans that were rounded up as a result of the WWII isolation camps. 

In 1946, Toguchi and his family returned to Hawaiʻi from the isolation camps where he worked various jobs to try to put food on the table. Eventually his interest in cooking and his need to put food on his own family’s table aligned. In 1947, Seiichi and his wife Nancy opened the first Highway Inn on Farrington highway. The restaurant steadily gained popularity for its local style cuisine and in 1960 the restaurant moved to Waipahu near the Waipahu Sugar Mill and plantation. As the next generation of Toguchi took over, the restaurant again moved in 1984 to its current location on Leoku street. In 2000 the family opened Highway Inn Seafood Market on Moloalo St in Waipahu. With the opening of the seafood market, Highway Inn was able to offer more in the form of catering and events. Finally in 2013, Highway Inn opened its location in Kakaʻako.