Posted on: Friday, October 31, 2003

Hungry Lion now under new ownership

By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer

After 21 years, the ancient banyan tree and costumed lion mascot are staying, but the founder of the popular Nu'uanu restaurant Hungry Lion is leaving the business.

Roy Shimonishi yesterday turned over the keys to the eatery and a cookie bakery to two Japanese business investors half his age who want to continue, and possibly expand, what the longtime kama'aina restaurateur started in 1983 in the Nuuanu Shopping Plaza at the corner of Nu'uanu Avenue and School Street.

Shimonishi, 62, said that for the past two or three years, he was spending only weekends at the restaurant, a landmark known for its banyan tree growing through the roof inside the restaurant and for its mascot dressed in a lion costume waving at passing drivers.

The rest of the time, Shimonishi has been busy helping Kapi'olani Community College raise money to build a new Culinary Institute of the Pacific at the old Cannon Club site on the slopes of Diamond Head.

"I have not been physically here working the restaurant," he said. "I thought it was a good time (to pass it on). It's really like a good-feeling kind of thing. These guys are going to take it another 10 or 15 years."

Masayoshi Takanisa and Naoto Kamada, both 32 and the owners of two restaurants and a private school in Japan, sealed the deal to buy the businesses yesterday after an international search for a buyer, Shimonishi said.

The purchase price was undisclosed. The sale includes The Hungry Lion Inc. and To You With Aloha Co. LLC, maker of Gold Flake Cookies, which together account for $1.7 million in annual sales.

All 40 or so employees of both companies will transfer to the new owners, who take over tomorrow.

Shimonishi said Takanisa will run the operations in Hawai'i, and would like to export or manufacture Gold Flake cookies in Japan and possibly fulfill Shimonishi's idea to take Hungry Lion overseas.

Shimonishi said he will miss the restaurant, which is open 24 hours on Friday and Saturday, but has had a good time since coming up with the restaurant's theme, derived from his love of sports.

In the early '80s, Shimonishi was not putting much of his business marketing degree from the University of Hawai'i to use as a pharmaceutical sales representative who also dabbled in real estate and managed the King's Bakery Coffee Shop in Kaimuki.

At the time, a pharmacy client of his was closing at the Nu'uanu center. Shimonishi said he found no restaurants within five miles, so he decided to start one.

"The demographics was very good," he said.

The lion theme came to him because of his interest in sports, particularly football.

"(In) football, everybody has a mascot," he said. "I knew I wanted a mascot. I went through everything and thought why not have a lion? He's the king of the animals, and he always looks hungry."

Business boomed, and has done well for more than two decades. Good cash flow and profits over the years sustained the restaurant even during periods when it lost money. But now it's time for Shimonishi to let it go.

"I have a good feeling," Shimonishi said. "It's like a new beginning."

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8065.