L&L expands eastward — to Connecticut
By David Butts
Advertiser Staff Writer
Consider this fair warning to the dieting population of the East Coast: You are about to be attacked by two scoops of rice and one scoop of macaroni salad.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
L&L Drive-Inn, the plate-lunch specialist that took chicken katsu and Spam musubi to California in 1999, will open its first restaurant on the Eastern seaboard in two months.
L&L Drive-Inn on Dillingham Boulevard in Kalihi is one of the chain's 48 restaurants in Hawai'i. Owners Eddie Flores Jr. and Johnson Kam are about to open their first L&L restaurant in Manchester, Conn.
Manchester, Conn., about 100 miles north of New York City, will be home to an L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, as the chain is known on the Mainland. Eddie Flores Jr., president of L&L
Drive-Inn, said yesterday the Manchester deal is about 90 percent done, and he is also considering a location in Florida.
L&L has 48 restaurants in Hawai'i and 17 in California, Nevada and Washington state. By June, the company expects to have 25 outlets on the Mainland.
Flores says opening restaurants on the Mainland makes him feel like a kid in a candy store. In Hawai'i there are dozens of competitors doing plate lunches. "There's no competition on the West Coast. Sales are about 30 percent higher and rent is lower."
"I'm done with Hawai'i," Flores said in reference to his expansion plans. Flores and his longtime partner, Johnson Kam, chairman of L&L, are hoping to open 15 to 20 stores per year on the Mainland.
"I want Eddie Flores and Johnson Kam to be known as the ones who started plate lunch across the U.S., like Roy Kroc with McDonalds," Flores said.
That may seem grandiose, but people who know Flores expect him to do well on the Mainland.
"I think he will be very successful," said Michele Van Hessen, president of the Hawai'i Restaurant Association. Changing the restaurant's name to L&L Hawaiian Barbecue on the Mainland was "a bit of genius marketing," she added.
Van Hessen, who is from California, explains that "on the East Coast, Hawai'i has the reputation of paradise. People are curious to find out what we are offering."
And when they discover it is a giant blob of mayonnaise-coated macaroni, white rice and a slab of meat, will they be pleased?
So far, they are, says Flores. "We have a big following. When we open, we don't advertise. We just open the door. We have a young crowd."
"Hawaiian is a magic word," Flores added.
The company's Web site, hawaiianbarbecue.com, is certainly pushing the Hawai'i connection. "Eating at L&L Hawaiian Barbecue is one of the easiest ways to taste the eclectic cuisine and culture of Hawai'i. No shirt or shoes required," the site reads.
To explain the menu, it offers this: "The Hawaiian plate lunch is a huge, gastronomically challenging mixture of Asian and American starches (two scoops rice and one scoop macaroni salad) supplemented by a United Nation of entrees such as chicken katsu, beef curry, deep fried shrimp, mahi mahi, lemon chicken, barbecue shortribs, hamburger steak, etc."
Most of the 65 L&L restaurants in Hawai'i and the Mainland are employee-owned and pay a royalty to the company as a franchise. Total annual sales at all 65 amount to about $34 million and they employ 700 to 800 people, Flores said.
Flores says the timing is right to make a Mainland push, with Asian food being one of the fastest growing segments of the industry. "We are coming in as Asian-American food. We offer value, quick service, a tremendous amount of food and we cook it in front of you."
As for the trend toward Americans eating healthier food, Flores doesn't buy into it. "You are talking about 10 percent who are healthy," he said, adding that a plate-lunch meal is still better for you than fried chicken and french fries.
What about vegetarians? "How many are vegetarian? You have 2 or 3 percent," said Flores. "I tried veggie burgers. It didn't work."
