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L&L Hawaiian Barbecue facts for kids
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L&L Hawaiian Barbecue in San Diego, California
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Trade name
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| Industry | Restaurants |
| Genre | Made-to-order Quick Service Home Cooking |
| Founded | 1952 in Honolulu, Hawaii |
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| Headquarters | Honolulu, Hawaii |
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Number of locations
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232 locations (2024) |
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Area served
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Key people
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| Products | Hawaiian Plate Lunch, Spam Musubi, Loco Moco, Kalua Pork, Lau Lau, Teriyaki |
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L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, also called L&L Drive-Inn, is a popular restaurant chain that started in Honolulu, Hawaii. It's the only restaurant chain from Hawaii that focuses on Hawaiian-themed food. L&L is famous for its "plate lunches," which are big meals with rice, macaroni salad, and a main dish.
Eddie Flores Jr. and Johnson Kam bought the first L&L Drive-Inn in 1976. They started to expand the business and brought Hawaiian Plate Lunch, Spam Musubi, and other dishes to the mainland United States in 1999. Today, there are over 200 L&L locations across the United States and in other countries like Japan.
Contents
How L&L Hawaiian Barbecue Started
In 1976, Eddie Flores Jr. bought the original L&L Drive-Inn in Oahu, Hawaii. He bought it for his mother, Margaret Flores, to run. Eddie kept the name L&L and made the building a small walk-up restaurant. Johnson Kam joined Margaret as a business partner. In 1977, Margaret sold her share of the business to Johnson.
This first restaurant became very successful. Because of this success, L&L expanded to many other places across Hawaii. Eddie Flores Jr. later returned as a partner with Johnson Kam. Together, they helped L&L become a franchise in Hawaii in 1988. By 1997, there were 30 L&L restaurants across the state of Hawaii.
Expanding to the Mainland
L&L Restaurants in the Western U.S.
In 1999, Johnson Kam and Eddie Flores Jr. noticed that Hawaiian-style plate lunches were selling well in California. They realized that their food could be popular outside of Hawaii. So, in October 1999, they opened the first L&L location on the mainland. It was inside the Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry, California.
Eddie Flores Jr. decided to change the name on the mainland to L&L Hawaiian Barbecue. This new name helped people understand that the restaurants served Hawaiian food. When the first California L&L opened, there were already 49 L&L locations in Hawaii. After opening in Puente Hills Mall, more L&L restaurants opened across Los Angeles County. In September 2000, the first L&L in Orange County opened.
The first L&L restaurant in the Western United States outside of California opened in Hillsboro, Oregon, in August 2001. Soon after, a location opened in Henderson, Nevada, in July 2002. More restaurants continued to open in other states. These included Lynnwood, Washington (March 2003), Mesa, Arizona (June 2004), Provo, Utah (August 2004), Aurora, Colorado (August 2004), and Anchorage, Alaska (November 2009).
L&L Restaurants in the Eastern U.S.
L&L opened its first restaurant in the Eastern United States in May 2003. This location was in Manchester, Connecticut, but it has since closed.
In New York City, the first L&L opened on Fulton Street in November 2004. This New York City location has also closed. As of August 2025, L&L's only New York location is near the Canadian border in Evans Mills. However, three new locations are planned for East Harlem, the Lower East Side, and Bushwick.
In Florida, an L&L restaurant opened in Jacksonville in April 2017.
L&L Restaurants in the Central U.S.
As of 2022, there are several L&L locations in the Central United States. The Plano, Texas, location opened in November 2008. Other Texas locations can be found in San Antonio, Houston, Katy, and Waco. Some past locations in this region included Champaign, Illinois (October 2004), East Lansing, Michigan (June 2005), Lewisville, Texas (April 2008), and Franklin, Tennessee (June 2015).
L&L in American Pacific Territories
L&L also expanded to American territories in the Western Pacific. The first expansion west of Hawaii was to American Samoa in June 2008. However, this restaurant closed between September 2012 and March 2013.
A location in Guam opened in October 2014, but it later closed in January 2018.
L&L Restaurants Around the World
L&L's first international restaurant opened in Auckland, New Zealand, in February 2009. In Japan, the first location opened in the Shibuya area of Tokyo in June 2010. A second Japanese location opened near Enoshima, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, in December 2017. The first L&L in China opened in June 2013.
The first L&L restaurant in Malaysia opened in Kuala Lumpur in December 2014. In 2015, the first L&L in Indonesia opened in Jakarta in June. This was followed by the first L&L in the Philippines, which opened in Manila in October 2015.
The company closed its only Indonesian location in January 2017.
What's on the L&L Menu?
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A Loco moco mix plate from L&L, with rice and macaroni salad
The main item on the L&L Hawaiian Barbecue menu is the Hawaiian plate lunch. This meal usually includes two scoops of rice, a scoop of macaroni salad, and a main meat or seafood dish. Many menu items show influences from Asian and Polynesian cultures. Examples include chicken katsu and kalua pork.
The menu also features other popular Hawaiian dishes, such as the Loco moco and saimin. L&L is also well-known for its spam musubi, which they added to their menu in 1999. Spam musubi is a popular snack made with a slice of grilled Spam on top of a block of rice, wrapped with seaweed.
In 2021, L&L started "National SPAM Musubi Day" on August 8. This day celebrates how popular the snack has become.
Awards and Achievements
L&L Hawaiian Barbecue has received many awards and has been ranked highly in different magazines. In 2002, Nation's Restaurant News named L&L Hawaiian Barbecue one of the "50 Regional Powerhouse Chains." In July 2005, Restaurant & Institutions Magazine ranked L&L as the 314th largest restaurant chain in America.
Also in 2005, Restaurant Business magazine ranked L&L as number 15 out of 50 for the "Top Growth Chains in the Nation." Entrepreneur magazine also recognized L&L's parent company, L&L Franchise, Inc., as number 165 out of the top 500 franchises in 2005.
In 2012, the company published a cookbook. It was called "$266 Million Winning Lottery Recipes: L&L Hawaiian Barbecue Cookbook." Eddie Flores Jr. wrote the book, and Jon J. Murakami drew the pictures. The book shares many of the famous recipes from L&L Hawaiian Barbecue.
See also
- List of barbecue restaurants
- List of restaurants in Hawaii
- List of fast food restaurant chains