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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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| Private | |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Genre | Fast food |
| Founded | 1976 in Honolulu, Hawaii |
| Founder |
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| Headquarters | Honolulu, Hawaii |
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Number of locations
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211 locations (2022) |
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Area served
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Key people
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| Products | Hawaiian Plate Lunch |
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L&L Hawaiian Barbecue is a popular restaurant chain that brings the taste of Hawaii to many places. It's also known as L&L Drive-Inn or just L&L. This company started in Honolulu, Hawaii, and is famous for its special "plate lunch."
The story of L&L began in 1952 when Eddie Flores Jr. and Johnson Kam bought the first L&L Drive-Inn. They started expanding their restaurants to the mainland United States in 1999. Today, there are over 200 L&L locations. You can find them in many U.S. states like California, Hawaii, Texas, and Florida. They also have restaurants in other countries, including Japan.
Contents
The Story of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue
How it All Started
In 1952, Eddie Flores Jr. bought a small restaurant called L&L Drive-Inn in Oahu, Hawaii. He bought it for his mother, Margaret Flores, to run. They kept the name L&L, even though it wasn't connected to the original owners anymore. It was a small place where people could walk up and order food.
Later, Johnson Kam joined Margaret as a business partner. In 1978, Margaret sold her share of the business to Johnson.
After this first restaurant became very popular with local people, Eddie Flores Jr. came back as a partner with Johnson Kam. Together, they decided to let other people open L&L restaurants. This is called "franchising." They started franchising L&L in Hawaii in 1988. By 1997, there were 30 L&L restaurants across Hawaii!
Spreading Beyond Hawaii
Opening in the Western U.S.
In 1999, Johnson Kam and Eddie Flores Jr. saw that Hawaiian-style plate lunches were selling well in California. This showed them that their food could be popular outside of Hawaii. So, in October 1999, they opened their first L&L restaurant on the mainland. It was inside the Puente Hills Mall in City of Industry, California.
When they opened in California, Eddie Flores Jr. decided to change the name for the mainland restaurants to "L&L Hawaiian Barbecue." This new name helped people understand that the restaurant served Hawaiian food, not just typical drive-in food.
After the first California location opened, many more followed in Los Angeles County. In September 2000, L&L opened its first restaurant in Orange County.
L&L then started opening in other Western states. The first one outside California was in Hillsboro, Oregon in August 2001. Soon after, restaurants opened in Henderson, Nevada (2002), Lynnwood, Washington (2003), Mesa, Arizona (2004), Provo, Utah (2004), Aurora, Colorado (2004), and Anchorage, Alaska (2009).
Expanding to the East and Center
L&L also tried opening restaurants in the Eastern United States. The first one was in Manchester, Connecticut, in May 2003, but it has since closed.
In New York, the first L&L opened in New York City in November 2004, but that one also closed. Today, the only L&L in New York is near the Canadian border in Evans Mills. In Florida, an L&L opened in Jacksonville in April 2017.
For the Central United States, L&L has several locations in Texas. The Plano, Texas, restaurant opened in November 2008. Other Texas locations include San Antonio, Houston, Katy, and Waco. Some past locations in the Central region included Champaign, Illinois, and East Lansing, Michigan.
Reaching American Pacific Territories
L&L also tried to open restaurants in American territories in the Pacific. They opened in American Samoa in June 2008, but that restaurant closed a few years later. A location in Guam opened in October 2014, but it also closed in January 2018.
Going International
L&L's first international restaurant opened in Auckland, New Zealand, in February 2009. In Japan, the first L&L opened in Shibuya, Tokyo, in June 2010. A second Japanese location opened near Enoshima in December 2017.
The first L&L in Malaysia opened in Kuala Lumpur in December 2014. In 2015, L&L opened in Jakarta, Indonesia, in June. The first L&L in the Philippines opened in Manila in October 2015. However, the Indonesian location closed in January 2017.
What's on the Menu?
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A Loco moco mix plate from L&L, with rice and macaroni salad
The main dish at L&L Hawaiian Barbecue is the Hawaiian plate lunch. This special meal usually comes with two scoops of rice, a scoop of creamy macaroni salad, and your choice of meat or seafood.
Many of the menu items show off Asian and Polynesian flavors. You can find dishes like chicken katsu (crispy fried chicken) and kalua pork (slow-cooked pork). They also serve popular Hawaiian foods like Loco moco (rice topped with a hamburger patty, fried egg, and gravy) and saimin (a noodle soup).
L&L is also very well known for its spam musubi. This is a popular snack made of grilled Spam on top of rice, wrapped with seaweed. L&L started selling spam musubi in 1999. In 2021, L&L even created "National SPAM Musubi Day" on August 8th to celebrate how popular this snack has become!
Awards and Achievements
L&L Hawaiian Barbecue has been recognized for its success in many magazines. In 2002, Nation's Restaurant News called L&L Hawaiian Barbecue one of the "50 Regional Powerhouse Chains." This means it was one of the strongest restaurant chains in its region.
In 2005, Restaurant Business magazine ranked L&L as one of the top 15 fastest-growing restaurant chains in the country. Also, Entrepreneur magazine listed L&L's parent company as one of the top 500 franchises in 2005.
In 2012, Eddie Flores Jr. even published a cookbook! It's called "$266 Million Winning Lottery Recipes: L&L Hawaiian Barbecue Cookbook." The book shares some of the famous recipes that made L&L so popular.
See also
- List of barbecue restaurants
- List of restaurants in Hawaii
- List of fast food restaurant chains