honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, May 7, 2002

Lu'au operator, entrepreneur Chuck Machado dead at 62

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

They called him the Lu'au King, and Chuck Machado earned the title, serving millions of Hawaiian feasts to visitors in Waikiki and introducing dozens of Hawaiian stars to the world of entertainment.

Chuck Machado catered to Waikiki tourists.

Advertiser library photo

Charles "Chuck" Machado Jr., who was born Aug. 1, 1939, in Kailua, Kona, died here Saturday morning at Straub Clinic & Hospital of heart problems. He was 62.

If tourists didn't encounter Machado's brand of aloha at the lu'au they were likely to have been met by Machado and his minions at the airport, where Machado got his start as a lei greeter and later opened his own Aloha Lei Greeters company.

In later years, Machado sponsored popular and profitable jackpot fishing and golf tournaments on the Big Island.

By 1977, the United States Small Business Administration had named the 36-year-old Machado Hawai'i's businessman of the year. He was the first person of Hawaiian ancestry so honored, and Hawaiian cultural scholar George S. Kanahele said at the time the award would put to rest the stereotype of Hawaiians as non-business people.

At the time, Machado was grossing $2 million a year, employing 142 people, staging five to 10 lu'au a week and running four other visitor-oriented businesses.

In 1988, Gov. John Waihe'e saluted him on his 25th business anniversary as "a leading Hawaiian entrepreneur" who built an empire on hard work, zeal and vigor while participating in business associations and groups as well.

Machado attended Konawaena and then Kamehameha Schools, and was a student at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa when he got into the lei trade.

Chuck Machado's Luaus began as a moonlighting operation at the Chinese American Club in the Ala Wai Clubhouse in 1963, moved to Fort DeRussy to cater to the military rest-and-recreation crowd, then settled in for two decades on the beach at Waikiki in front of the Outrigger Hotel.

Between 500 and 700 visitors three times a week tucked into the kalua pig, the chicken long rice and the lomi salmon, and of course, always poi. Machado eliminated 'opihi from the menu reluctantly, and not until the late 1980s. It wasn't the $200-a-bucket cost, he said, but the scarcity.

"It gave me too much stress worrying about whether it would show up or not," he said.

"He tried to keep the lu'au Hawaiian," said Mamo Howard Ornellas, former vice president for 17 years with Chuck Machado Luaus and his corporations.

"Most of our lu'aus, you know, have no kalua pig, no nothing. It's just a buffet called a lu'au so the tourists could eat," Ornellas said.

"But he tried to keep it as authentic as possible. He would include maybe a piece of teriyaki, so (lu'au-goers) ... would have something to eat if they didn't want to try anything else. But he was known for being authentic."

When Machado put on a lu'au at Washington Place in 1975, his staff worked around the clock to make sure the fish was fresh, and picked through 400 coconuts to find 200 with tender spoon meat.

"He was the first commercial lu'au person in the state," Ornellas said. "He was just a brilliant man. He paved the way for the lu'au industry and entertainment. He paved the way for a lot of entertainers. He was too helpful and generous. He took care of everyone."

Those who worked early in their careers for Machado included Nohelani Cypriano, Jack and Cha Thompson of Tihati, Kimo Kahoano, Noe Noe Zuttermeister, Leinaala Simerson, Kawika Trask, Squires of the House of I, Brickwood Galuteria, Al Harrington, Cathy Foy and Doug Mossman.

It was during one of Machado's own rare appearances on stage that Mossman got the better of him when Machado kidded the audience by asking them to give Mossman a standing ovation, because he had never got one. The applause hadn't died down when Mossman turned to his boss and said, "Well, I've never had a pay raise" either, so "how about a raise?"

"How could he turn me down?" Mossman grinned later. "And it was a juicy raise."

Machado is survived by sons Charles III of Kahului and Myles of California; daughter Monica; brothers Lionel and Barry; sisters Carolyn and Brenda Lee of Kona; and a granddaughter, Chelsie.

Visitation will be 3 to 4 p.m. Thursday at Christ Episcopal Church in Kealakekua, Kona, with a service at 5 p.m. Visitation will also take place from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday at Borthwick Mortuary in Honolulu, followed by services at Borthwick at 11 a.m. Saturday. Aloha attire.

Machado's ashes will be scattered off Waikiki fronting the Outrigger Hotel at 2 p.m. Saturday.