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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.”
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