They were all delicious, devoured, and delectable.
Hawaiian Bros Island Grill is in the
process of expanding and this year year-over-year sales growth of 172%. Cameron McNie founder and co-CEO Hawaiian Bros Island Grill when recently
talking about its growth stated, ““We got caught off-guard by the sales,” …
“Our first two locations had opened really well and our third literally doubled
what we were doing at those. We realized we had some major throughput problems. You know the kind of problems every
restaurant operator wants!
So, Kansas City, Mo.-based Hawaiian Bros retooled its drive-thru
operations with the goal of serving one car every 30 seconds. Those efforts
have paid off.
Hawaiian
Bros currently has 30 locations, with plans to open another 15 units this
year. All but two restaurants have Drive-thru’s. Its sales grew 172% in 2021,
compared to the prior year, to $56.8 million, according to Technomic. In 2020,
it had just nine locations. And it operated only four stores the year before
that.
In case you did not know, or are unfamiliar
with Hawaiian cuisine, the plate lunch is essentially the island version of the
Southern staple “meat and three.” It typically includes two scoops of white
rice, topped with a protein, served with a generous portion of mayo-based
macaroni salad.
So, as the story goes, This new normal comfort
food offering, traditionally served on a segmented plate (hence the name), is
said to have its roots in the 1880s,
when it became the must-have lunch for workers on Hawaii’s pineapple and sugar
plantations. Back then, many of the laborers came from Asia, so lunches
typically came from leftover meat from last night’s dinner, served atop rice.
I showed up about 50 years later, when as
I said lunch wagons began selling similar meals to workers, served on those
now-iconic segmented plates. The carb-heavy meals soon became popular at
restaurants and drive-ins on the islands.
With a nice twist most of the plate
lunch’s protein options have their roots in Asian cuisine. Hawaiian Bros, for example, serves
teriyaki chicken, kalua pork, Huli Huli chicken, sweet-and-spicy Molokai chicken
and more.
Other plate lunch establishments might
serve loco moco (hamburger patties topped with brown gravy and fried egg) or
Spam musabi, in which the tinned meat is wrapped in nori. Simplicity is the
name of the game at Hawaiian Bros, where the kitchen uses just over 80 SKUs to
create the menu.
McNie continued, “We wanted to keep the
menu very simplistic,”. “We’ve seen some great brands do really well with one
or two core items. We just really saw the value in that. We want to be great at
simple things.”
McNie founded the concept with his
brother, Tyler, in 2017, and opened the first restaurant the following year.
The two grew up in Oregon and worked at the small plate lunch chain owned by
their family.
The McNies, though, decided to start
their own concept, Hawaiian Bros Island Grill.
Cameron McNie, stated, We’re kind of our own thing,”. “People try to
bucket us into fast casual and QSR. Where we fit, I’m not 100% sure. I know we
definitely have elements of both. We certainly aim to be quick, efficiency,
speed, that’s a huge value to us. But the quality of the food, the fresh ingredients,
making things to order, that’s an element of fast casual. Our food is fresh.
There’s no freezers, fryers or microwaves.”
After seeing the throughput issues at
that third location, the chain decided to focus on drive-thru efficiency. Most
kitchens now have a double-sided make line, with one side focusing on
drive-thru orders. During busy times, two to three employees are stationed
outside, at the drive-thru, with handheld devices to take orders.
And the chain has been adding second
windows at the drive-thru, to better control the traffic flow. Customers pick
up drinks at the first window and food at the next.
“Our operation in the kitchen is faster
than the order-taking operation,” McNie said. “We had to figure out the math
on, How do we get the right amount of orders coming in that we can produce?”
McNie said Hawaiian Bros is currently on
the hunt for capital, to allow it to open more locations even more quickly. And
it is in the midst of finishing franchising documents and hiring employees to
focus on a future franchised business.
The McNies always wanted Hawaiian Bros to
be a fun place to work. So, they’ve listened to employees to make that happen. The
chain offers flexible schedules, “cool” (and free) crew shirts and hats, free
meals during every shift, free health insurance and a generous vacation offering,
he said.
“This has got to be a fun restaurant to
work at,” McNie said. “We don’t want to be heavy on rules … Our goal is to be
generous to the employees; they’re the ones making this happen.”
More than 80 employees who were essential
to the opening of Hawaiian Bros’ first few stores were recently given an
ownership stake in the company, he said. “Some cooks that were there on opening
day got a piece of ownership in the company,” he said.
How are you standing out in a crowded
field? Fresh fast food on a plate that
you wat with a fork is a good place to start.
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