On the Scene with Eddie Flores Jr.

Eddie Flores Jr. was born and raised in Hong Kong, where he grew up speaking English and Cantonese. Flores was 16 when his family came to Hawaii, but financial hardships meant he had to spend his high school years with an uncle in San Francisco. He chose to attend the University of Hawaii over several mainland colleges and graduated in 1970. Hawaii has been his home ever since.

In 1976 Flores bought a restaurant for his mother and named it L&L Drive-Inn. Today he is president and CEO of a company that owns or franchises almost 200 L&L restaurants in Hawaii, the mainland, Guam and five foreign countries.

JOHN BERGER: You recently finished a one-year term as president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii and were named the 2016 Model Chinese Citizen of the Year by the United Chinese Society of Hawaii. What’s next?

EDDIE FLORES JR.: Forming a sales department to sell more L&L franchises. We’ve never had a sales team. People just call in and say they want to buy one. My partner and I want to expand, and we need a sales staff.

JB: I’ve heard that when people ask if you have a hobby, you say “making money.” Is that true?

EF: Well, I like making money. When I was a kid — about 10 years old — in Hong Kong I would buy a slice of watermelon for a dollar and cut it into three pieces and sell it to my siblings for 50 cents each. That’s not a joke!

But even at that age I understood about banking (and) I’d extend credit to them to buy ’cause they had no money to buy.

JB: You’re going to be 70 on Monday. One of your daughters is vice president and chief financial officer; the other is involved in marketing and social media. Do you ever think about retiring?

EF: There’s no reason to retire when you’re having fun doing what you’re doing.

To me, work is not work — it’s fun. If I get tired of it I’ll quit, but now it’s still fun for me. Every morning I wake up excited to go to work.

JB: On your father’s side you’re a Flores. On your mother’s side you’re a Lum. Do you think of yourself more as Filipino, more as Chinese, or both?

EF: My culture is more Chinese than Filipino, but I have been very involved with the Filipino community. They asked me to build the Filipino Community Center (in Waipahu). It took 10 years of my time working with Roland Casamina, but we built it.

I haven’t done too much for the Chinese community, but the last three or four years I got really involved. The way I do things is when I get involved in something I get involved 100 percent, and so one of the things I did as president of the Chinese Chamber was help them secure a $2 million building. I’ll continue to be active with Chinese community organizations as long as I enjoy it.

JB: Tell me something about yourself that might surprise people.

EF: I was an intelligence analyst for six years in the United States Army Reserves. I was lucky: If I hadn’t been able to read and write Chinese, I would have been an infantryman in Vietnam.

“On the Scene” appears weekly in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Sunday Magazine. Reach John Berger at jberger@staradvertiser.com.