Coming To America

Before long, Lam began to open and then sell new Ba-Le locations to faithful employees and family members. It was his way of spreading the wealth--and the Ba-Le name--throughout Honolulu.

In 1988, Lam expanded his bakery and added a new element to the mix: wholesale goods marketed to outside buyers such as the Hilton and Sheraton hotel chains. Next, several airlines came on board, including Continental and Hawaiian Air, which contracted with Ba-Le to provide 5,000 croissants and dinner rolls per airline each day. In 1997, he sealed a wholesale deal with upscale restaurant chain Sam Choy's.

In the meantime, Lam has become well-known in Hawaii's Vietnamese community for helping others. His philosophy? Put your family first, and treat your employees like family. "It doesn't matter how smart you are or how strong you are. You cannot be successful if you don't have the other people work together with you," says Lam. "That's why my success is maybe half from me and half from my employees. Without them, I couldn't be here."

Most of Lam's employees are Vietnamese. "Most of them don't speak English," says Lam. "They come here just like me."

Rather than pay his workers minimum wage, he starts them at $7.50 an hour and offers them flexible work schedules so they can attend English classes. "I treat them just like family," he says. "Sundays, we picnic together. We go play volleyball together, and they come to my house for karaoke and swimming."

There's no doubt that Lam, the proud recipient of the 1998 Ernst & Young LLP Hawaii Entrepreneur of the Year award in the retail food and beverage category, has a firm grip on democracy: "If you a small customer or big customer, I treat you the same way. I respect you and take good care [of you]," he says.

When you do the math (think 50,000 croissants sold daily), it's clear Lam has found the right formula for success. Expecting $3.5 million this year in bakery revenues alone, Lam runs his wholesale operations from the 15,000-square-foot warehouse he purchased in 1995. He also still owns and manages two of his original sandwich shops.

But Lam is looking beyond Oahu's shores for future growth. "[Next,] we open on another island--Maui," he says. And he doesn't plan to stop there. The man behind this American success story has his eye on other lands: "I have two [teenage] sons. The older one is studying Mandarin," he says. "I try to convince him that maybe someday he will run the business in China. That's my dream. And the second boy study Japanese. Who knows? Maybe some day, we open in Japan."

Contact Source

Ba-Le French Sandwich & Bakery, (808) 847-4500, fax: (808) 845-3967

This article was originally published in the December 1998 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Coming To America.