Franz "Shiro" Matsuo, the ukulele-strumming founder of Shiro’s Saimin restaurants, died Thursday. He was 93.
His restaurants serve island comfort food and 60 different saimin noodle combinations that earned Matsuo the nickname "Mistah Saimin."
Known for his quirky poetry, his singing and ukulele playing, Matsuo was also named a "Statesman of Goodwill of Hawaii" by then-Gov. Linda Lingle.
Matsuo said that with only $85 in savings, he left a tenure-track teaching job at Kapiolani Community College in 1969 to pursue the ownership of Hula Hula Drive Inn in the Aiea Bowl.
"I needed a signature item," Matsuo said in an interview last year with Star-Advertiser "Rearview Mirror" columnist Bob Sigall. "I picked saimin. No one was doing it. ‘How can you make saimin into a meal itself?’ people asked me.
"It was the only thing I could think of. I changed the name to Shiro’s Hula Hula Drive In and Saimin Haven. It was like a cloudburst. From day one, customers kept coming. It never stopped."
Matsuo also said the success of his saimin is in the noodles made in his own factory, now managed by son Alan.
"He had such an upbeat personality that people really liked him," said Aaron Lee, who with wife Linda Matsuo (Matsuo’s daughter), operates the family’s three restaurants.
Before he opened his restaurants, Matsuo was the personal chef for Gov. John A. Burns when Burns was elected in 1962.
"Gov. Burns was a very simple man, very humble," Matsuo said. "He never grumbled. He was not flamboyant. He made me feel important. When I was in the doldrums, he brought me back. I am what I am today because of him."
Matsuo was a McKinley High School graduate who learned to cook while serving in the 1399th Construction Engineer Battalion during World War II.
The walls of his restaurants are adorned with his "Dear Hearts" poems that offer life lessons as well as some food for thought.
"He liked to say he never retired," said Lee. "He would come into the (Waimalu) restaurant every day to talk to the customers. That kept him active."
Funeral services will be held at 5:30 p.m. May 30 at Mililani Mortuary-Waipio, mauka chapel. Burial services will be private.
