Cult Hawaiian chain L&L Barbecue comes to Dallas area, has Spam on menu

by Teresa Gubbins

As in the pink meat, not the bothersome emails.

Dallas is thick with steakhouses but how many restaurants do you know that serve spam? Add this one to your list: L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, a fast-food chain spawned in Hawaii that opened its first Dallas-area branch in Lewisville at the beginning of March.

Finally, here you will find Spam with noodles or better yet, in musubi, a sushi-like block of rice topped with your choice of meat and wrapped with a thick strip of seaweed. Musubi can be ordered with Portuguese sausage, BBQ chicken, or fried chicken "katsu", but why select any of those when you can get it topped with a nice slab of grilled Spam?

In the six weeks L&L has been open, 1,200 orders of spam musubi have sold, says owner Bill Wofford -- which if you do the math is 200 per week or nearly 30 a day. But the No. 1 best-seller is the BBQ mixed plate lunch, with Hawaiian Barbecue beef, teriyaki chicken, and "kalbi" short ribs (cut across the bone).

L&L's "plate lunch" provides your carbs, your carbs, and your meat.

If you've been to an L&L, you already know that the signature item is the "plate lunch" which consists of two scoops of sticky white rice, a side of macaroni salad, and a hot entrée, be it teriyaki beef, short ribs, pork with cabbage, or the odd sentimental favorite known as "loco moco", consisting of two hamburger patties topped with brown gravy and two fried eggs -- weird but good. Those trying to eat in a more healthy manner will find garlic shrimp or the unique salmon patty served with brown rice. And if none of this works for you, there are good old hamburgers and fries.

Wofford became interested in L&L after encountering a branch in Denver, where he co-owned a few branches of WingStop with a partner. This Lewisville L&L is the first in Texas, but there are more on the way, with another group of owners targeting Plano, McKinney, and Allen, while Wofford explores the Arlington, Garland, and Mesquite. Spam is coming to a neighborhood near you.