We used to have dozens of dairies on Oahu. Nearly 90 dairies produced over 30 million gallons of milk a year. The high cost of doing business on an island has sent most of them into our rearview mirrors.
However, the remnants of two remain in other business endeavors. One evolved into a restaurant chain; the other is now a landmark food store.
The Hygienic Store in Kahaluu began as the company store for the Hygienic Dairy, a former owner told The Honolulu Advertiser in 1968.
The dairy opened in 1931. It had pastures in Windward Oahu where Valley of the Temples is today; Ahuimanu; and Kaneohe, where the Pali Golf Course is. The Hygienic Store dates to between 1935 and 1938. It was the only store between Kaneohe and Kahuku for many years.
The other business is L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, which began as the L&L Dairy. Ida Lee, one of the original owners, told me she and her husband began the business as a dairy in 1952. The cows were in Waimanalo, but the processing plant was on South King Street where Harding Avenue and Kapiolani Boulevard meet, diagonally across from Market City.
Robert Lee Sr. was a Korean immigrant. His first business was a restaurant downtown in 1940 called Molly’s, son Bob Lee Jr. recalled. After the war Lee bought farmland in Waimanalo and turned it into a dairy.
L&L stood for Lee and Lee. Robert Lee Sr. originally thought of L&L as him and his father, who never came to Hawaii from South Korea. Ida told me L&L later was her and her husband, Robert.
Bob Lee Jr. remembered that his father pointed to the L&L sign many years ago and said, “That L is for me, and the other L is for you.” Ida Lee laughed when her son told that story. She had never heard it.
L&L Dairy sold homogenized milk or pasteurized cream top milk for 26 cents a quart in 1955, 5 cents less than others on Oahu.
The dairy had a slightly higher butterfat content than others on Oahu, Bob Lee Jr. said. “The milk won many awards and had a cult following. People said it was tastier, and many would only buy our milk.”
It was mostly retailed at mom-and-pop grocery stores, but it also was sold through neighborhood milk depots. You’d drive up. An attendant would come out to your car, take your order and bring the merchandise to you.
Besides milk, L&L Dairy sold eggs, juice, butter, bread, hamburgers, hot dogs, sodas, ice cream, malts and milkshakes.
At one time L&L Dairy had milk depots at its processing plant near Market City, one at 1523 Nuuanu Ave. (between School Street and Vineyard Boulevard), another in Kaimuki at 9th and Waialae avenues, and the fourth on Liliha Street where an L&L, now L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, is today.
In 1958 the Lees sold to the Hirayama brothers, and two years later they opened another milk depot, snack bar and fountain in Palama on North King Street, between Robello Lane and Kaiulani School. They called it L&L Drive-In — using that term for the first time. It lasted only a few years.
Ina (Oshiro) Lee, 71, told me she used to live near the L&L milk depot on Nuuanu Avenue. “As I recall, it was right across the street from the former entrance of Foster Garden. We used to buy milk there as well as Green River drinks in paper cups.”
Alan Chang says he was born in 1946 and raised on Nuuanu Avenue directly across from the entrance to Foster Garden. “Next to the garden entrance was Hosoi Mortuary on its makai side and Borthwick Mortuary on its mauka side.
“The mortuaries have since moved a few blocks to their present locations, and the main entrance of Foster Garden moved around the corner to Vineyard Boulevard.
“The L&L Dairy milk depot also sold hamburgers and teri burgers for 19 cents each,” Chang recalls. “Cokes were 5 cents, and you had a choice of regular, cherry, vanilla or lemon. Boy, were those the good ol’ days!
“When the H-1 freeway was built, everybody had to move. My family moved to the Punchbowl area in 1958, and L&L moved to its present Liliha Street location.”
Steven Sakuma, 71, said his two uncles, Yukio and Fred Hirayama, asked his father, Harold Sakuma, to open up the L&L milk depot on Liliha Street.
“The original location on Liliha Street was an HRT (Honolulu Rapid Transit) turnaround station. It was remodeled and became an L&L Dairy-Liliha Fountain, which my father ran from 1960 to 1970.”
Rowland Ho says Harold Sakuma was a master carpenter by trade and built the Liliha L&L building by himself.
“I remember Mr. Sakuma would hire the neighborhood kids (fifth- and sixth- graders) to peel potatoes by hand at his house for his french fries at L&L,” Ho says.
Kona resident Bryant Ching, whose family owned Rico Dairy and Ice Cream, also remembers when L&L was just a small kiosk in a turnaround just makai of Jane’s Fountain. He lived in Alewa Heights in the 1950s and recalls that L&L was next to Liliha Bakery (at 1703 Liliha St.) before it moved to Kuakini Street.
Harold Sakuma sold to Yoshiko Kitagawa, who ran it for a few years. Then Eddie Flores Jr. bought it in 1976 as a gift for his mom, Margaret, who was bored and wanted something to do.
“She ran it but after a while didn’t want to work at night,” Flores said. “So, I brought in Johnson Kam as a partner to run it in the evenings.” Margaret left after five years and Kam was in charge.
L&L has an interesting business model. It locates sites for its stores, signs leases, gets loans and then finds a person to run it as a part owner. That person owns 20 to 30 percent initially and over time can own it completely.
L&L has about 200 locations today in Hawaii, California, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, Texas, New York, Tennessee, Guam and Japan. The name L&L Hawaiian Barbecue was created for mainland consumption.
When I asked Flores about how plate lunches are being received outside Hawaii, he predicted that plate lunches will be as popular as hamburgers on the West Coast in 10 years.
“Many don’t know we were the first to offer a miniplate,” Flores says.
“There are at least 50 copycat restaurants. Every day, people come into our shops and take pictures. They are copying us because our model works.”
L&L Hawaiian Barbecue is celebrating its birthday with a 52-cent plate lunch special at its Keeaumoku Street location. Usually it did that with a 76-cent special as that is the year Flores — the current owner — bought the business.
With the pinpointing of the original dairy business to a 1952 opening, Flores decided to honor that date instead of the 1976 date.
You can get a 52-cent plate lunch from 10 a.m. to noon Tuesday at its Keeaumoku L&L at Walmart. If you want a soda, that will be an extra dime.
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Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books, available at www.companieswekeep.com. Contact him at Sigall@yahoo.com.
