Within the next few months, the company plans to bring its concept to Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Lee’s also has an eye on expanding into Washington D.C./Virginia/ Maryland market areas within the next two or three years and doubling its number of locations each year as it continues its national growth.
Lee’s is now the exclusive North American distributor of the Delimanjoo technology and products. In addition to making and selling the cakes in its own stores, the company also offers separate Delimanjoo kiosk franchises.
The Asian influence is obvious throughout the Lee’s Sandwiches snack menu. House-made ice cream flavors include jackfruit, lychee, soursop, durian, and taro along with the more familiar vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Smoothie selections include green bean, sapodilla, and Thai tea. Customers can also add tapioca pearls or sippable bits of the Southeast Asian herbal gelatin called grass jelly.
No. 1 among the iced drink offerings is Lee’s signature café sua da, French drip coffee lightened and sweetened with condensed milk Vietnamese style. The coffee is roasted at the company’s central foodservice facility. Lee’s also offers pre-made café sua da in grab-and-go 16-ounce bottles and 64-ounce containers.
Other Eastern-inspired cooling concoctions are made from honey chrysanthemum tea, pennyworth (an herbal tea-like brew), and mint milk with or without grass jelly. Even the Italian soda selections include tropical flavors such as banana, coconut, mango, and passion fruit.
From the opening of their first brick-and-mortar restaurant in downtown San Jose in 1983, the Le family (they added an extra “e” to the name for the business as a nod to their adopted American home) in partnership with their relatives, the Quachs, have sought locations in areas with high Asian populations “to make sure that they attract a sufficient customer base to break even,” says COO Tom Quach. With a population of nearly 15 million, Asians are the third largest and second fastest-growing minority group in America, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Their numbers are projected to increase to more than 33 million by 2050.
The owners of Lee’s soon discovered that their flavor profiles were similar to those favored by Hispanics, the nation’s largest minority group, accounting for close to 15 percent of the U.S. population. Currently there are more than 44 million Hispanics in this country. That number is expected to increase to almost 103 million by 2050 and will make up 24 percent of the population.
College students, “who tend to be open to trying new flavors,” according to Hubris, and who are always looking for the biggest bang for their usually limited food bucks, have been so responsive to the concept that many of Lee’s locations are close to college campuses. And, Hubris says, that trend will continue as the company grows.
That strategy is in keeping with a recent National Association of College and University Food Services reported that, “Asian flavors and foods have exploded and are popular among many palates.” In its “2007 Culinary and Restaurant Trends report,” the Institute of Food Technologists predicted the “mainstreaming of ‘familiar’ ethnic street foods” from other cultures including Southeast Asian.
To wit: At some of the Lee’s restaurants in California, as many as 80 percent of the customers are non-Asian. In Houston the number is around 20 percent. Multilingual POS signage in the stores makes it easy for international customers to order. Free wireless Internet accessibility attracts students.
“We’re competing not just for the 15 million Asian Americans, but for the entire population of more than 300 million Americans,” Hubris says.