132 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / January-February 2018
WHEN POKÉWORKS opened
in midtown Manhattan
in December 2015, its
cofounder Kevin Hsu won-
dered if he had made a huge
mistake. “The first evening,
no one stepped foot inside,
apart from two drunk college
kids asking if we sold shark,”
remembers the 36-year-old
entrepreneur. The answer
was no. His fast-casual
eatery served the traditional
Hawaiian bowl of marinated
raw fish. “I thought maybe
we were trying to introduce
a food that the masses were
just not ready for. No one
had a clue what poke was or
how to say it.” (“Poke” rhymes
with “OK,” for the record.)
But business picked up
once nearby office workers
learned they could get a large
bowl of lavishly seasoned
ahi tuna for $13.50—less
than the price of two sushi
rolls in other restaurants
nearby. Introducing an
Instagram-worthy, seaweed-
wrapped poke burrito also
helped. “One freezing day
in January, I arrived to see
a line outside that stretched
past a neighboring Chick-
fil-A,” recalls Hsu. “I thought,
Wow, if this many New
Yorkers prefer raw fish in the
middle of winter, this could
work anywhere.”
Two years in, there are
18 Pokéworks locations in
key North American cities
such as Seattle, Chicago, and
Vancouver, five of which are
franchises, and the busiest
locations average 700 to 800
servings a day. In January,
the company is embarking
on an expansion program to
open another 80 locations,
primarily franchised, across
the U.S. “This isn’t some
trendy bicoastal thing,” says
Hsu. “People everywhere are
eager for diverse foods, and
they want healthier fast and
fast-casual dining.”
Pokéworks is far from
alone. In the past few years,
poke has become ubiqui-
tous in America. In 2016,
there were 585 American-
Hawaiian restaurants in the
U.S.; 43 of those had “poke”
in their name, according to
the food industry market
research firm Datassential.
In 2017 there were 843; 290
had “poke” in their name.
Mentions of poke on U.S.
restaurant menus have
increased 90 percent from
four years ago. Significantly,
more than 35 million Ameri-
cans have tried the stuff.
If this kind of growth
continues, it would seem poke
is poised to join cupcakes,
frozen yogurt, cold-pressed
juice, and customizable salads
as seemingly-out-of-nowhere
exploding food trends. And
of course, theories abound
on what makes poke the new
hot food. There’s Ameri-
cans’ increasing interest in
healthier lunch options, of
course. There’s the narrative
that millennials love anything
in a bowl. (In 2016, the Wall
Street Journal declared that
“bowls are the new plates.”)
There’s the priming of Amer-
icans’ palates: Much of the
work of familiarizing diners
with raw fish had already
been done by the U.S.’s 4,000
or so sushi restaurants. Then
there’s the simplicity of what’s
required to prepare the dish;
all anyone needs to open a
location is a refrigerator, a
rice cooker, and a bit of elbow
room. (Not having to ventilate
a commercial space filled with
industrial ovens can shave a
few hundred thousand dollars
off the cost.) “We started in
one location and opened
almost 20 within our first two
years,” says Hsu. “That would
have been more difficult with
any other type of restaurant.”
But no matter what the
reason for its popularity,
poke restaurant owners are
about to learn something
that many cupcake, fro-yo,
juice bar, or salad shop
entrants learned the hard
way: Trying to turn a profit
from the latest food trend
is not for the faint of heart.
And if you’re going to jump
in, you’d better understand
exactly what’s in the water.
“When something is hyped
in the media, you often see
incredibly high growth for a
while before attention shifts to
the next thing,” warns Aaron
Allen, a third-generation
restaurateur and founder of
W
In 2016, there were 585
Hawaiian restaurants in
the U.S.; 43 had “poke”
in their name. In 2017,
there were 843; 290 had
“poke” in their name.