Hawaii-based L&L Franchise Inc. has ranked No. 184 among the 2011 Franchise 500 list prepared by Entrepreneur magazine for its January issue, currently available online. The popular local plate lunch restaurant has 188 U.S. locations and three foreign locations but has been steadily expanding since it began franchising in 1991.

The magazine annually ranks franchise systems from A & W Restaurants Inc. to soup, salad and sandwich chain Zoup! Systems LLC, though restaurants make up only part of the franchise list.

The businesses are ranked according to financial stability, growth rate and size of the system, as well as length of time the selectee has been franchising, startup costs, litigation, percentage of terminations and whether the company provides financing to franchisees.

L&L’s initial franchise fee is $35,000 with royalty fees at 4 percent because "everybody has to make money, or it’s not going to work," said co-founder and chief executive officer Eddie Flores Jr. The company decided to keep the fees low to keep the prospect of opening a restaurant attractive to potential and existing franchisees.

"We offer one of the lowest cost fee structures as far as franchises go," said Bryan Andaya, L&L chief operating officer, in a statement.

"When capital dried up in 2008, we concentrated our expansion efforts by focusing on acquiring existing spaces that had similar infrastructure," he said, to help franchisees avoid ground-up build-outs. "We also put more effort in areas where the recession has been less severe like Alaska, Texas and overseas," Andaya said.

The chain known in Hawaii as L&L Drive-Inn and on the mainland as L&L Hawaiian Barbecue has been on the list before, ranked No. 170 in 2007 and No. 145 in 2006.

HUI, WHERE’D THE ADULT STANDARDS GO?

Questions poured in to "TheBuzz" about what happened to the adult standards format on KHUI-FM 99.5 on Sunday.

The format debuted Nov. 1, 2006, replacing a Hawaiian music format and morning show hosted by Tiny Tadani.

At the time, then-Salem Media Hawaii General Manager Steve Miller cited "an obvious hole in the market for some adult standards" and brought in the programming from Colorado-based Dial Global, a company that provides services to radio stations.

Now, California-based Salem Communications Corp., primarily a Christian broadcasting and publishing company, has decided to use KHUI’s 100,000-watt FM signal to expand the reach of its core format, Christian teaching and talk, with a simulcast of KGU-AM 760.

"It really wasn’t about ratings," said Program Director Jack Waters. "It was more about the mission, the goal of Salem as a company."

The simulcast will continue through January and be followed by a yet-to-be-announced format change for KGU.