The Chans love the challenge

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Millie and Richard Chan own I Love Country Cafes on Pi'ikoi Street, at Kahala Mall and in the Town Center of Mililani. With the work ethic of many immigrants, they rise at 4:30 and don't go to bed until 11:45 p.m. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

He and his wife, Millie, called their first takeout place at Fort Street Mall

"I Love Country Cafe." The name was supposed to make customers think of wholesome, healthy food. Instead, some of them showed up expecting Southern-fried cooking.

It's a little misunderstanding that somehow fits a business where an eclectic mix of customers and employees — from cops to ex-cons, bodybuilders to mall rats — gather each day in what has grown to three I Love Country Cafes with a total of 200 workers.

The growth for Chan, a 48-year-old Hong Kong immigrant, hasn't been without plenty of mistakes and lessons since he started out selling sodas and manapua on the beach 30 years ago.

One of the most important lessons has been to constantly look for new opportunities in business — wherever they may be.

His latest is a company of five employees trying to lock up airport contracts throughout Asia to offer advertising on luggage carousels. His other business, Pacific Basin Airport Maintenance LLC, employs 10 people and has the $250,000 contract to clean the jetways at Honolulu International Airport each night, as well as the $120,000 contract to clean the airport sidewalks.

But the opportunities haven't all been without challenges. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, sales at the three I Love Country Cafes have dropped more than 30 percent and the Chans have had to cut work hours and café operating hours.

Still, the restaurants — on Pi'ikoi Street, at Kahala Mall and in the Town Center of Mililani — continue to form the core of their operations, generating 65 percent of all business, which Richard runs out of a warehouse-office in Waipio Gentry.

Part of the success of the restaurants is that they can tap into the trend toward healthier eating. The National Restaurant Association estimates that health-food sales are growing by more than 20 percent a year.

It all adds up to a lot of work for a couple who don't seem to mind. They rise at 4:30 every morning and finally go to sleep at 11:45 p.m., thinking about business nearly every minute in between.

Their daughter, Elizabeth, is now a senior at Georgetown University, and the Chans just sold their three-bedroom home in Manoa and bought a two-bedroom condominium on Kapi'olani Boulevard not far from the main I Love Country Cafe.

"Less housework," Millie said. "I can concentrate on work."

Immigrants' work ethic

Their work ethic began far away — in Hong Kong for Richard; Dutch Guyana (now Suriname) for Millie.

Richard's great-grandfather had established Hawai'i roots generations before when he tried to run a pig farm in Kahala. He had since returned to Hong Kong when Richard, then 18, and his older brother, Clay, tried to make their own way in the Islands in 1972.

Clay was working for the Air National Guard and the two brothers bought soda and manapua at Hickam Air Force Base with Clay's military discount, then resold them at a profit at Waimea Bay.

"We were really poor back then," Richard said. "The cops would keep chasing us away. But if we made $15 a day we thought we were rich."

Richard enrolled at Leeward Community College, where the tuition was only $25, and dreamed of studying medicine. But the brother's business instincts tugged at them.

They borrowed $20,000 from a great-uncle to buy a Mr. Fish and Chips store in Waiakamilo even though they knew nothing about running a business or making fish and chips.

"We just happened to see a sign for sale and thought we could make it work," Richard said.

They renamed it "Clay's Fish and Chips" and by 1973 had enough capital to take out a $20,000 loan to buy a chop suey restaurant in Kalihi whose owners were retiring. They bought the other Mr. Fish and Chips in Waipahu and added an ice-cream parlor at King's Alley in Waikiki.

Within six years, they had taken out near $100,000 in liability and loans and were running four separate businesses.

"When you're young, you're aggressive," Richard said. "Whatever comes your way, you want it — whether it's profitable or not. You figure you have plenty of time to make up any losses."

But by 1979, Richard had married Millie and was burned out on the restaurant business. He was tired of working seven days a week and trying to go to school at the same time. So he sold his interest to Clay, who eventually sold all of the restaurants and moved to San Francisco.

In the meantime, Richard got his real estate license to cash in on the new Japanese investment boom, but the work bored him. He was able to buy a foreclosed home in Wai'alae Iki, sell that and buy another home in Manoa.

Trinkets for tourists

Chan then turned to retail, seeing an opportunity to make money off the growing number of Japanese tourists here. He quit school and used credit cards and the restaurants as collateral to take out $80,000 in loans to open two trinket shops.

He imported shells, salt and pepper shakers, coffee cups, baseball hats — "anything you can think of" — from the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.

The stores — on the third floor of the Waikiki Shopping Plaza — struggled at the location.

"We almost got killed," Chan said. "We had some rough times."

Then Chan opened a new shop across the street on the ground floor of the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center and saw sales take off. "Being on street level makes a big difference," he said. "When you're first starting out, you don't know these things."

By 1986, Chan had a 3-year-old daughter and was burned out again. "I thought I could retire," Chan said. "I was stupid, young and arrogant."

He was 32.

UH studies for Millie

Millie studied accounting and nutrition at the University of Hawai'i and the family lived off the proceeds from Richard's restaurant and store sales, and the few homes he sold as a real estate broker.

Mostly he spent the next two years raising Elizabeth and by 1988 was again looking for something new. It was when he and Millie were walking downtown when a new business idea began to form.

"There were crowds of people," Chan said, "and everybody wanted something to eat."

Chan thought the couple would sell simple, healthy takeout food for people in a hurry. Because of the downtown crowd, they would only need to work five days a week and serve lunch only.

The Chans invested $10,000 in a little shop with two tables out front. They offered fewer than a dozen items, from a roast turkey plate lunch to sandwiches, salads and vegetarian chili.

Business was good and two years later they sold the first I Love Country Cafe and opened an 800-square-foot, full restaurant at Pi'ikoi, next to Ala Moana Center.

They took over nearby business space to expand to 3,000 square feet, added more items and were constantly getting requests from bodybuilders for dishes loaded with protein and fiber but no fat or oil. One customer, in training, once ate eight plate lunches of brown rice, salad and chicken.

The walls of the main restaurant on Pi'ikoi Street are now lined with framed photos of bodybuilders; dozens more pictures lie in back waiting to be framed and hung. I Love Country Cafe helps sponsor every bodybuilding meet on O'ahu, but its owner, who walks every morning, nevertheless remains a stocky 5 feet 7 and 190 pounds.

Along the way, Chan started getting requests from halfway houses and drug counselors to hire ex-convicts. They've always been nonviolent offenders convicted of petty crimes, usually the result of drug problems. But all of the seven or eight workers ended up back in prison.

"I wish I had a happy story," Chan said. "When they first come here, they're always very eager. They say, 'Richard, I want a new life.' But none of them have worked out."

But the menu has succeeded, and grown, as Millie studied at the Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York and Napa Valley in California. Business had been strong, with the Pi'ikoi restaurant selling 800 lunches and dinners each day.

But now a new challenge has arisen in the aftermath of Sept. 11 as consumers have trimmed spending. Restaurant sales are down to 500 meals per day.

To compensate, the Chans cut back 20 percent on employee hours and also chopped operating hours at various times of the year for a total cutback of 10 percent.

But the restaurant has hung onto some loyal customers drawn to Millie's cooking and hospitality.

"It's very healthy," said Sunshine Conley, a 30-year-old surfer who eats at I Love Country Cafe two to three times a week. "See that lady in red? She's super friendly."

Conley brought her father, Leonardo D'amico, on his first visit and they both ate Conley's favorite, vegetable stir-fry and salad.

Ryan Quiddaoen, a regular, just finished an "Asian trio" plate of baked mochiko chicken, marinated steak and teriyaki beef.

He loves the food. "But I come for Millie," he said.

"She's just like a mom," Quiddaoen said. "They've really got a family environment here."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.