Farewell from the Honolulu Metromix team!

It seems premature to write a farewell for Metromix Honolulu, which launched less than two years ago and quickly became the city’s go-to site for all things food and fun, generating a staggering 62.7 million page views in just 22 months.

Metromix will not be part of the Ho­nolulu Star-Advertiser, but that has nothing to do with what our team accomplished since our August 2008 launch. Along with generating enormous traffic for our food galleries, event coverage and, of course, party pics, we became a well-known, hip brand that people relied on to remain current with Honolulu happenings.

What makes this site particularly special is how it came together. It’s a true collaboration of local talent, with photographers, writers and bloggers — some with professional journalism experience and others with just a driving passion for eating, socializing and going out — converging to cover Hono­lulu’s thriving dining scene, nightlife and even Twitter community.

Everyone in our Metromix family gave 200 percent for the site, staying out at all hours taking party pics, traversing the island for the best eats and working their personal social networks to create buzz and traffic not only for their own content, but for other Metromix writers and photographers. We all loved our work, and we loved this site.

We started with just a database of venue and event listings and cautiously began writing restaurant and nightclub reviews. But it became clear early on that readers wouldn’t embrace anything but a fun, nonconventional site with personality and edge. So we did a lot of experimenting, deciding to do all our dining and nightlife reviews as photo galleries, turning food reviews into food adventures, and rallying weekend after weekend to bring you pics from the hottest parties. The more daring, quick and energetic we were, the more buzz and traffic we generated.

Not all of our experiments worked, but some were successful beyond belief. Our “20 things to do in Honolulu,” a weekly photo gallery that features 20 events worth attending, garnered some 1.4 million page views, while our “Gotta try” gallery, where we select must-try eats around town, generated 1.2 million views.

And the only way to describe our party pics is insanely popular. We routinely had galleries with more than 100,000 views. Our most popular gallery ever — the 2009 Crazy, Sexy, Ghoul pre-Halloween party — received almost 600,000 hits.

We knew our mission. People wanted to know and see all the fun stuff happening in Honolulu, and if we provided that, they’d reward us by coming to our site and bringing their friends.

So, we went for it. Raves, reggae concerts, block parties, fashion shows … no problem, we were in.

From the unexpected insanity of SoHo Mixed Media Bar’s grand opening to The Living Room’s bittersweet closing party, we were there. And thanks to our nightlife photographers, who passed out thousands of Metromix “I got flashed” cards, we became a familiar sight all over town.

In just one of many memorable weekends, three Metromix photographers hit the town and brought back snaps from the Spam Jam, Kokua Festival, Aloha Bash, the Bruno Mars concert, a robot party at thirtyninehotel, Monkey Bar at the Hyatt and Russell Tanoue’s Beautiful party.

Our food coverage also was a huge hit. Fifteen of our food galleries have gotten more than 100,000 page views.

We have to give particular props to writer Melissa Chang. Of our top 10 most popular food galleries, Melissa produced half of them. She essentially created the idea of taking friends and even strangers with her on her food tastings and turning them into adventures, which proved to be a big reader draw.

Melissa and our other food writers spent countless hours shooting and writing for their galleries, and of course, eating enormous amounts of food, all for the sake of work. (Although maybe that was a job perk?)

Another member of our original Metromix posse is Mari Taketa, who wasn’t a food writer when she started, but is now one of the city’s best, with a witty, irreverent, yet informed voice that readers now associate with our Metromix personality. Jermel-Lynn Quillopo, meanwhile, started as a temporary clerk, entering Metromix venue information into our database, and ended up as one of our key nightlife photographers, who always rallied for a party.

Yes, it was fun, and yes, we created something that we hope endures in one way or another. And this is because you, our readers, supported us and kept coming back. You made Metromix work, and you motivated us to keep eating, partying and hustling around the city to tell stories in new, colorful ways.

In the most sincere way we can, we say thank you! On behalf of all our writers and photographers, as well as the Metromix marketing and sales staff, we have to say this was a thrilling ride, and we had a blast. And we hope you did too.

(Melissa Chang wrote her own tribute to Metromix in her blog in The Honolulu Advertiser. Check it out.)

Diane Seo is managing producer of Metromix. She can be reached at dseo@metromix.com. Tracy Chan is the associate producer of Metromix. She can be reached at tchan@metromix.com.