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Key Takeaways
- If you are not rooted in something real, you are just another option.
- Long-term success depends on evolving beyond the founder.
- By turning employees into owners, they built a system that creates wealth, not just locations.
Eddie Flores Jr. is the founder and CEO of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue. But he does not talk about Hawaii as if it were a theme. He talks about it as if it were the business.
From the beginning, Flores Jr. understood something most operators miss. You are not just selling food. You are selling a feeling. And in his case, that feeling had a name.
“Hawaiian is the draw,” Flores Jr. says. “You’ve got to know the word Hawaiian because it is a magic word. Everybody wanted to be in Hawaii.”
That insight shaped everything that followed. Not just the name, but the positioning and the discipline to stay connected to where it all started. While others expanded quickly and adapted to local markets, Flores Jr. chose to stay close to the source.
It is a philosophy he recently shared on stage as a keynote speaker at the Restaurant Franchising and Innovation Summit and expands on in his book, Franchising the American Dream. For Flores Jr., the message is simple: If you are not rooted in something real, you are just another option.
“We are the real Hawaiian barbecue. We are the original. We started it. We are still in Hawaii.”
For Flores Jr., it’s more than just marketing language — he views it as an operational strategy. Being in Hawaii means understanding what authenticity actually looks like in real time. It is how he protects the brand from becoming a copy of itself. And that matters to him because the market caught on.
“There must be about 500 to 1,000 copycat restaurants,” Flores Jr. says. “They call it Hawaiian barbecue, but it is not Hawaiian food.”
Instead of chasing them, Flores Jr. doubled down on what they cannot replicate: culture, community and credibility.
What started as a single restaurant has now grown into more than 235 locations, with hundreds of franchise owners across the country. For Flores Jr., that scale came from staying rooted in Hawaii and letting the culture lead. It’s never been about chasing trends.
Next generation leadership
Eddie Flores Jr. never planned to build a restaurant empire. In fact, he did not even want to be in the restaurant business. The first location was a gift. Flores Jr. bought a small restaurant for his mother for $22,000, a move that quietly set the foundation for what L&L Hawaiian Barbecue would become.
From there, the growth was anything but traditional. Partnerships were built on handshakes. Locations were opened one at a time. In many cases, stores were passed on to employees, giving them a path to ownership. It started as a single operation and turned into a system that created opportunities for others.
“My partner is one of the most generous men I have ever met,” Flores Jr. said. “He opened up a lot of restaurants, and all these people became millionaires because of him.”
Opening more stores for the sake of opening more stores was never the goal. It was about building a network of operators who understood the culture and could carry it forward.
The biggest shift came later.
After decades of running the business his way, Flores Jr. handed leadership to his daughter, Elisia Flores. She came into the company after working as a corporate auditor at General Electric, bringing structure, discipline and financial rigor.
Flores Jr. built the company as an entrepreneur. Move fast, trust your instincts, throw the darts and figure it out along the way. She brought a new perspective with an emphasis on systems, accountability and long-term scalability became the focus.
Flores Jr. saw it in the numbers.
“I learned to keep my mouth shut,” Flores Jr. said, laughing.
The founder who built the brand on instinct stepped back and let the system take over. Under her leadership, the company continues to grow, with plans to open dozens of new locations each year.
No matter how big it gets, it still comes back to Hawaii.
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Key Takeaways
- If you are not rooted in something real, you are just another option.
- Long-term success depends on evolving beyond the founder.
- By turning employees into owners, they built a system that creates wealth, not just locations.
Eddie Flores Jr. is the founder and CEO of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue. But he does not talk about Hawaii as if it were a theme. He talks about it as if it were the business.
From the beginning, Flores Jr. understood something most operators miss. You are not just selling food. You are selling a feeling. And in his case, that feeling had a name.
“Hawaiian is the draw,” Flores Jr. says. “You’ve got to know the word Hawaiian because it is a magic word. Everybody wanted to be in Hawaii.”
