Welcome Western students and Happy Valley residents to a new favorite chow spot, The Lunch Bucket. Since opening Dec. 20, this place is turning out regulars like hotcakes, or Kau Kau pork and rice plates.
The Lunch Bucket, located in Viking Village, is where to go for cheap and filling meals with no-frills comfort. It is the product of years of experience feeding the folks hardy plates at skimpy prices.
“It’s what I have always wanted to do,” said the owner Alton Yamaki, 52. He has cooked for the army, diners, drive-ins and lunchwagons. He has made sushi and even worked in fine dining, but his passion is the community lunch counter. The menu incorporates the food Yamaki loved in Hawaii with American staples and offers most of it for fewer than five dollars. They serve it up with free Wi-Fi and introductions to just about everyone who comes through the door. Yamaki said, “That’s why it’s The Lunch Bucket, it’s the kind if place I like to eat at. It’s me.”
Yamaki and crew Larry Albert, 67, and RaeAnn Cunningham, 55, are the kind of friendly that is as delightful as it is uncommon. Cunningham takes an order only after she can safely say, “Well now that you know everyone, are you hungry?” Without the slightest offense, Albert said to a female patron, “Wow! You are a good eater!” When asked about it he said, “We’re cooks. We like feeding people. So it’s a good thing.”
It seems to be working. Without advertising the word is spreading about this little gem tucked under Western’s campus. When asked about how it felt to invest in a new business during our current economic downturn, Yamaki said he feels for everyone affected but said that “The economy will benefit me” because everyone can afford to eat here. For Yamaki it is about creating a place people can come to everyday, which are exactly the kind of regulars he is already establishing. He said, “I just like people. You know what I mean.”
The Lunch Bucket is located at 505 32nd Street # 102 and is open Mon. through Sat. from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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