Kelly Degala started losing his hearing not long after his graduation from University Lab School.

“I’m legally deaf,” he said. Without his hearing aids, “I don’t hear anything.”

With them his hearing is limited to the point where he must read lips. If his wife, Kirstin Mittag-Degala, is with him, she will discreetly turn toward him to repeat what has been said.

The hearing loss has not stopped Degala from pursuing a career in the bustling, noisy world of restaurants, where shouted orders and rapid-fire communication are the rule.

His work has taken him from his Kalihi home to Seattle to San Francisco and back again, this time to open ABC Stores’ ambitious Dukes Lane Market & Eatery.

A “delayed hereditary trait” brought on his auditory loss, Degala said, and it is worsening. “My most recent hearing test showed that I’m losing more hearing, so in the future, down the road, I’ll qualify for cochlear implants so I can actually hear.”

The chef makes no secret of his hearing loss, and has told each member of his team. “I feel so comfortable with my disability,” he said.

Degala started out busing tables, until a chef asked him if he wanted to cook. He took the job after learning that the pay was better. “I’ll never forget my first time being a cook. Burned my hand, cut my hand, you name it. Scars up the yin-yang, hot liquid, people calling out tickets and you’ve got to keep up.”

Degala eventually graduated from culinary school at Kapiolani Community College, despite worsening hearing loss.

“I used to be a triathlete. I didn’t win anything, but when you’re training on your own, building endurance, it’s interesting — you have to have this inner spirit, mental strength. You have to be able to figure out how to make it work.”

He applies the same principles to his profession and to leading his team.

“Everyone kind of says to me, ‘You don’t sound like or act like you’re hard of hearing,’” he said. “I say, ‘Well, it’s not like it bothers me.’” Being surrounded by silence actually can improve his concentration. “I actually do a lot better in the kitchen when I can’t hear anyone.”

The chefs who work under him “know from my look if they’re doing something right or not,” Degala said.

Working with Degala is essentially no different from working with any other chef, said Gary Matsumoto, Dukes Lane chef de cuisine, who worked with Alan Wong for more than a decade and recently served as director of food and beverage at the Hawai‘i Convention Center.

In restaurant kitchens it is customary to call out “behind” when you’re on the move and someone is in front of you. With Degala you’ll also need to tap him on the back, Matsumoto said. Aside from that, “I haven’t noticed any difference.”

Restaurants commonly have printers that generate tickets for orders, but in Basalt, the restaurant Degala and his executive chef, Keith Kong, will oversee, kitchen display systems, essentially TV monitors, will show orders as they come in.

“Visually, it helps,” Degala said. “I don’t even have to speak. It’s not high-tech; it’s just the way we set up the kitchen.” It also allows for a paperless kitchen, which was an important goal. “Also, I want to keep the kitchen as quiet as possible,” he said, as it will be open to guests seated mere feet away from the action.

Degala’s career includes postings at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel & Towers, rising to sous-chef, to opening the Alana Waikiki Hotel in 1993 and Honolulu’s Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant in 1994. In 1998 he moved back to the mainland as a corporate chef, opening restaurants including the acclaimed Va de Vi in 2004 in the East Bay area of San Francisco, and later Pres a Vi, in the same city. He also worked for award-winning chef and restaurateur Charles Phan of San Francisco’s Slanted Door, overseeing a museum food hall that served 10,000 customers each day.

Now 57, Degala has been a corporate chef, a director of culinary operations, has run his own restaurants, designed restaurant kitchens and run multiple-unit operations, so in him, ABC Stores President and CEO Paul Kosasa hired one chef with several skill sets.

Kosasa said he became aware of Degala’s hearing loss as they got to know each other, but said he was confident that Degala is “a person who shares the same … alignment of philosophy and sense of adventure.”

Degala understands what is expected of him. “This facility has not one, not two, but three different kitchen operations that have to produce X amount of revenue and be successful every day once we open to the public,” he said.

“I want to make that vision work. I think there’s a dual goal as a company, as a team, to create what the end result’s about to be. I think we’re going to agree that we got it done.”