2025 Hale ‘Aina Awards: Restaurateur of the Year Peter Kim Built a Local Empire of Fast Food, Fine Dining and Coco Puffs

Yummy Korean BBQ surged into Honolulu’s fast-food lexicon in 1986—a plate lunch stand that blitzed O‘ahu with three locations in six months. To understand how it became the Yummy Restaurant Group of today, a small empire of fast food, Coco Puffs and prime steaks aged 45 days, is to understand how football shaped its leader.

At 19, Peter Kim walked away from a UH football scholarship to try out for the Alabama Crimson Tide, at the time the best college team in the country. Still struggling with English after immigrating to Hawai‘i, he later told a newspaper that he wanted to get “as far away from a Korean community as I could, be on my own, do my own wash.”

Improbably, he won the starting placekicker spot at Alabama and set records—207 points in three years, a 69.8% field goal percentage, 97% in extra points. Daily, he recounted later, he absorbed what legendary coach Bear Bryant told his players—pointers not about the game, but life after football. “Expect the unexpected,” was Bryant’s mantra.

Every restaurant faces adversity. The Yummy group took its blows, pivoted and kept going, becoming the most diversified player in the local industry and one of the oldest, with still more plans for expansion. All of which is why HONOLULU editors chose Peter Kim and Yummy Restaurant Group as the 2025 Hale ‘Aina Restaurateur of the Year.

A snapshot of the Yummy group today:

• 4 fast-food counters at Ala Moana Center—Yummy Korean BBQ, Lahaina Chicken Co., Cheeseburger Factory and Steak & Fish Co. (the group has sold off other Yummy Korean BBQ locations and licenses out Lahaina Chicken at the Honolulu airport)
• The Signature Prime Steak & Seafood
• 2 Little Joe’s Steakhouse restaurants
• 5 Liliha Bakery locations

Kim doesn’t like the term fast food. He describes his food court spots as “semi-fast food” since they use fresh produce and meat. After Yummy Korean BBQ set sales records and Ala Moana asked him to bring in more cuisines, he learned to cluster multiple concepts in one food court. Sharing kitchen space allowed for operational efficiencies, purchasing power improved, and employees had more chances for cross-training and full-time benefits. Kim printed his favorite Bryant quotes, like this one, on Yummy’s orange drink cups: “If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride and never quit, you will be a winner.”  

At one point there were upwards of 30 restaurants, in Hawai‘i and beyond. There was a partnership with Sodexo at UH Mānoa’s Campus Center and a contract with Aloha Stadium. Not everything worked—those that failed include Taco King, Chow Mein Express and Bear’s Drive-Inn; and Umami-ya Shabu Shabu restaurant.

“There’s no shame about it,” Kim told HONOLULU in 2013. “You learn from the mistakes and the failed operations. You kind of move forward and add a little experience to the next one you do.”

Signature Prime, the fine-dining steakhouse he opened because he loves steak, was a disaster when it debuted in 2013. Kim had focused on consistency, good food and good prices, but was quickly schooled. Connoisseurs knew precise grades, cuts, preparations; and knowledgeable, friendly service was key—a huge oversight for a semi-fast-food king. Kim read the Yelp reviews, he told HONOLULU, found some were “very well put together,” and learned from them.

He had never been to Liliha Bakery before he considered buying it. In 2008, customers were lining up for its 21 counter seats and its Coco Puffs, pancakes and griddle-fried butter rolls, but the single location and lineup had barely changed in 58 years. Kim left those largely intact.

“Rather than making sudden changes and shocking everybody, the most important thing is respect,” he told Hawai‘i Business in 2012. “There’s a reason why it’s been in business so long.” His first updates—air conditioning the kitchen and adding a second register—were for employees and customers.

Original Liliha aside, potential for expansion was a prime reason Kim bought the bakery/diner. The Nimitz location followed, its opening day flubbed when, unprepared for the power of social media and people’s appetite for Liliha, Kim anticipated 200 customers but got 1,500. He apologized publicly and opened three more, in Macy’s Ala Moana, Waikīkī and Pearl City. (Readers voted Liliha Bakery the Hale ‘Aina finalist for Best Local Chain.)

Yummy Group’s likely next opening will be another Liliha Bakery. That information comes via email—the only way we’ve been able to communicate with Kim in recent years. This time, he asks us to send our questions to senior vice president Angela Choi, who will answer with his input.

“If we find an available space that is fitting to our Liliha Bakery concept, then we are willing to explore,” the email reads. “Location matters, but most importantly, the lease agreement has to be stellar. There is one [space] that we are interested in, but it is still in the early stages.”

Have you accomplished everything you wanted? “Not everything. We are constantly finding ways to provide better service, better food, better quality, all for a better value for everyone involved. … I do want to take this opportunity to say that cleanliness and sanitation is our number one priority.”

Noted. As for why Kim doesn’t want to be interviewed—or photographed—it’s because he doesn’t want the spotlight anymore. Forty years is a long time to be on any playing field. Like Bear Bryant, he’s looking ahead—to Yummy Restaurant Group’s life after Peter Kim.

yummyhawaii.com