L & L Hawaiian Barbecue

L&L opened its 100th restaurant on Saturday, August 21 in Union City, California. It is located at the Union City Marketplace, 1668 Decoto Rd (At the corner of Decoto Rd. and Alvarado Niles Rd.). San Francisco Giants Pitcher and former Hawaii resident Jerome Williams is a part owner. In September, L&L expands its teritority into the East Coasts, opened two stores in Manhattan, New York, one on the Eighth Street, the other on Market Street. L&L stands for Lee and Lee, a Korean-American Dairy, which operated just outside of Kaimuki in the 50s. The diary opened a small store in Liliha, which sold its products in the city. In the 60s, the store was sold and converted into a fast-food restaurant, selling hot dogs and burgers. In 1976, Eddie Flores, a recent University of Hawaii at Manoa graduate and a successful Realtor, bought the L&L for his mother, who had been working as a cleaning lady at Patti's Chinese Kitchen in Ala Moana Shopping Center. Mrs. Flores always wanted to run her own restaurant, even though she didn't know how to cook. The first couple of years were tough, and she was tiring of the long hours, so Eddie called up his friend Johnson Kam to help out. Kam, whi immigrated from Macao in 1971, worked in the housekeeping department at Kaiser Hospital. On his days off he drove his truck to Pearl City and Makaha and sold manapua that he bought from a factory in Chinatown. For ﹩11,000 (﹩10,000 of which Flores helped finance), Kam bought half of L&L Drive-Inn and worked the night shift, usually logging in 14 or 15 hours a day. A year later, Mrs. Flores lost interest in the restaurant business, and Kam purchase her half of the drive-inn. In 1978, he helped one of his cookds open an L&L in Puck's Alley, near the University of Hawaii. Shortly thereafter, he helped another employee open a downtown location. Then there was a fourth, fifth and sixth. Kam would help them secure financing and in return retain an interest in the business, which he would eventually sell to his former-employee-now-partner. "We didn't do any plan. People work for me for two or three years, so I try and help them," says the soft-spoken Kam. "I keep 30 percent. I was doing fine." In the summer of 1988, the Flores and Kam families took a Maui vacation together. While strolling on the beach, the friends and former partners talked shop. Says Flores:"I told him, 'Johnson,are you crazy? You shouldn't be giving away your name like this. That's not the Chinese way of doing business!" The next year, the partners formed L&L Franchise Inc. In their first year in business, they collected about ﹩1,000 in franchising fees. Their recipe for success, they say, is to consistently serve generous portions of made-to-order, mouth-watering food, fast and at reasonable prices at all 47 locations here and on the mainland. Branding Effort L&L employees on the mainland are required to wear uniforms consisting of aloha shirts or polo shirts, and managers are encouraged to cultivate an Island feel, displaying Hawaii photos, surfboards and distributing the state's daily papers. In addition, franchisees are required to purchase certain brand-name ingredients and products such as Best Food mayonnaise, McCormick spices and Keoki's Lau Lau. However, the operators aren't required to purchase these or any of their provisions from a particular supplier. The owners also have the freedom to add to their menus to fit the tastes of their particular communities. Flores claims that every L&L tastes slightly different, a fact that he considers as a strength, not a weakness. The most important element in L&L's branding effort is also the most crucial ingredient of any successful restaurant: the cooking. All new L&L franchise owners must undergo a grueling two-week training course with the company's executive chef, Raymond Cheng. The cooking boot camp is followed by a two-month stint at one of the company's West Coast operations. While L&L's cuisine is easily imitated, Flores and Kam want to make certain that it can't be duplicated. "Everyone must learn how to cut chicken, everyone," says Flores, who has yet to learn how to cut chicken. "It all comes down to the food. What makes us different from all the imitators and every other restaurant out there is that we are from Hawaii, and we know what good Hawaii cooking tastes like." The formula seems to be working. According to Flores, L&L's Mainland restaurants average gross annual sales of ﹩500,000 to ﹩600,000, about 20 percent more than its Hawaii locations. Cultivating this exploding network of restaurants are Kam and his daughter Eva, the director of West Coast operations. Eva, who started her L&L career at age 8, scooping ice cream, has done long tours of duty on the Neighbor Islands and in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Washington. Johnson travels hree weeks out of every month. "We are working toward making our restaurants consistent. We would like them to look more alike," says Eva. "However, part of our appeal is that we have the feel of a mom-and-pop restaurant that you've just discovered, something that's not perfect and manufactured. We're not like Starbucks and that's OK. Sometimes not being perfect is good." Reference: http://hawaiianbarbecue.com, http://www.hawaiibusiness.cc, http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com