To say that plate lunches are popular in Hawaii is like saying the sun will rise in the east. But in Utah?

The short answer is yes.

The dining services department at Brigham Young University in Provo opened its Aloha Plate restaurant in the student union food court in January 2016, and it generated $900,000 in revenue its first year.

That earned it a MenuMasters Best Line Extension award from Nation’s Restaurant News, an industry publication.

Aloha Plate, which is open to the public, also was named best fast-food restaurant in Utah County by a local magazine, according to Dean Wright, BYU director of dining.

Aloha Plate was created by Wright, who was director of dining services at BYU-Hawaii from 1980 to 1990. “I lived for 10 years in Laie, so that’s kind of where I fell in love with the plate lunch,” he said.

The takeout restaurant does business alongside 10 others, including national brands Subway, Taco Bell and Jamba Juice, and its sales are second only to Chick-fil-A.

Employees wear shirts and caps made by Crazy Shirts, which also is providing merchandise giveaways for Aloha Plate’s “Surfing into Summer” promotion.

The $5.79 plates come with two scoops of rice, a scoop of macaroni salad and a choice of protein — chicken katsu, kalbi, Spam, shoyu chicken or kalua pork. Specials include chili and garlic shrimp. “I would say our shoyu chicken is No. 1,” Wright said.

BYU spokesman Todd Hollingshead chose the kalua pork plate one day last week.

“I got there about three minutes before the students,” he said. When he turned around, the line was so long it would have otherwise been a 20-minute to a half-hour wait. That is how big a draw Aloha Plate is.

Wright, a 20-year Provo resident, said he knew the plate-lunch concept would work, but it took a while to convince others.

BYU has 1,737 Pacific Islander students, he said, and 40 percent of the athletes are Polynesian, “so I knew we had a population base that could understand what a plate lunch was,” he said.

“The thing that surprised everybody was, the typical mainland student just discovered it and has gone crazy over it. We’ll sell 5,000 plate lunches a day.” Aloha Plate also offers Dole Whip and guava cake.

On opening day in January, Aloha Plate did about $1,800 in sales, Wright said. “The second day it jumped to $2,400, the third day we were over $3,000, and by the end of the first week we were at $4,500 and $5,000 a day in sales and it’s never stopped.”

In its first year, Aloha Plate served 61.6 tons of rice, 26.7 tons of chicken and 21 tons of macaroni salad.

“Island food, Hawaiian food, is kind of taking the rest of the nation by storm now, and this, for college students, just hit the right price point,” Wright said. “And with all the carbohydrates, it’s very filling.”

Wright predicts Aloha Plate will generate more than $1 million this year.

Should you get a chance to visit, don’t bother asking for tossed salad instead of mac, or to have your protein served on a bed of quinoa.

“The one thing we wanted to do, it had to be made right, and authentic. So, we brought in Aloha Shoyu … and Spam, real Spam, and of course we use Best Foods (mayonnaise),” he said. They had to be sure “that anyone from Hawaii would stop and say, ‘This is a taste of home.’”

Wright and his wife love the “Taste of Aloha” cookbook published by the Junior League of Honolulu in 1983. It contains many a favorite recipe, proved by the fact that its binding is coming off, he said. Maybe they can find a new copy when they are in town this week for a family gathering, and for Wright’s tour of the Aloha Shoyu facility.

Send restaurant news and notes to erika@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4303. Follow Erika Engle on Twitter @eriKaengle.