Eddie Flores Jr. estimates that 500 to 1,000 restaurants now use the label "Hawaiian barbecue." Yet he believes many of them have copied the name without recreating the culture behind it. His own business, L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, has grown from one small restaurant into a chain with more than 235 locations.
For Flores Jr., Hawaii was never simply a theme added to the food. It was the foundation of the business. "Hawaiian is the draw," he says. "You've got to know the word Hawaiian because it is a magic word. Everybody wanted to be in Hawaii."
That belief shaped the company's approach to expansion. While many restaurant operators adapt their concepts to each new market, Flores Jr. tried to keep the business closely connected to its place of origin. Remaining active in Hawaii, he believed, allowed the company to observe how local food and culture continued to develop instead of relying on a fixed image of the islands.
This connection also became his answer to growing competition. Flores Jr. says that hundreds of restaurants have adopted the Hawaiian barbecue label, although he does not consider all of them authentic. Rather than trying to follow every competitor, he focused on the elements he believed were more difficult to reproduce: culture, community, and credibility.
The business did not begin with a plan to build a large restaurant chain. Flores Jr. did not even intend to enter the industry. He bought a small restaurant for his mother for $22,000, and that purchase became the starting point for L&L Hawaiian Barbecue.
The company's early growth was informal. Partnerships were often built on handshakes, and locations opened one at a time. In some cases, stores were passed on to employees, giving them an opportunity to become owners themselves.
Flores Jr. credits his business partner with helping create those opportunities. "He opened up a lot of restaurants, and all these people became owners because of him," he says. Expansion, in this account, was not only about increasing the number of stores. It was also about building a network of operators who understood the company's culture and could carry it forward.
As the chain became larger, however, an instinct-driven approach was no longer enough. The biggest change came when Flores Jr. handed leadership to his daughter, Elisia Flores. Before joining the company, she had worked as a corporate auditor at a large manufacturer. She brought greater attention to structure, financial discipline, accountability, and long-term growth.
The contrast between their management styles was clear. Flores Jr. had built the company by moving quickly, trusting his instincts, and solving problems as they appeared. His daughter placed more emphasis on systems that could support a growing franchise network.
"I learned to keep my mouth shut," Flores Jr. says, laughing. The comment captures an important stage in the company's development. The founder who had relied on personal judgment had to step back and allow a more structured system to take over.
Under Elisia Flores's leadership, the company plans to open dozens of new locations each year. Its continuing challenge is to grow without turning its Hawaiian identity into an empty marketing device. For Flores Jr., the answer remains the same as it was at the beginning: the business must stay connected to the culture and community from which it came.