Huli huli is, I mean, technically, in Hawaiian, is to turn.

It's just Hawaiʻi's version of rotisserie chicken.

But you really want to get that sugar caramelization, and to me, that's what makes a good huli chicken, right?

Moist, not dry.

Crispy, juicy and tender.

It has to be that way.

When he cuts the chicken and it goes on a plate, we need to see the juices come out.

It's just been a roadside dish for many generations.

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Yeah, cut up?

Okay.

Anything else?

And a rice and a coleslaw.

You have to keep a consistent heat.

That's that's pretty much it like we kind of monitor by hand.

It's a typical Saturday on Oʻahu's is North Shore.

Here, hungry customers line up for Ray's signature huli huli chicken.

My dad built a wagon.

Before, we used to haul trailers out, but he bought a wagon and created a pull out grill, and now it's like a lunch wagon, where we can cook like this.

So we'll do events when we're asked to or fundraisers, more out, just smaller ones.

So Yeah, we started in Kona.

1984.

We did a little fundraising out in Kona.

Growing up, he always told me, he would tell me, I didn't believe him.

He was like, "You're gonna run the business."

I was in my 20s when he said this.

And I was like, yeah, I don't know.

I think I want AC and, you know, a regular job, but he called it, and I love it.

It's like a way of life, not really a job.

It's kind of like our life.

Every culture has chicken of some form, and every culture has a way of making chicken.

So you know, when you come to Hawaiʻi as a tourist, it seems familiar, like, oh, here's a chicken I haven't had yet, so I want to try it In Hawaiian, "huli" means to "turn" or "flip over."

The persistent motion ensures an even cook and tender meat.

So my understanding, you know, is huli huli means to flip over, right?

So there's this constant motion of flipping over.

We season it before, like the day before, just because it has to move so quickly.

But with his recipe, we can just literally sprinkle it on right before we cook, which was what you could do, and then it goes on to the fire.

But it's basically the fire that is the real process of it all.

Crispy, juicy and tender.

It has to be that way.

When he cuts the chicken and it goes on a plate, we need to see the juices come out.

We need to see it coming off, on the skin, on on the table, you know?

Eating that huli huli chicken, eating that marinade of shoyu and chili water, a little chili pepper, honey, ketchup, brown sugar.

If you do it at a low heat, you're eating a little bit of burn, a little bit of char.

But you really want to get that, that sugar caramelization.

And to me, that's what makes a good huli chicken, right?

Moist, not dry.

And it's great.

You know, to me, that's, that's what huli huli chicken is.

The first rod on the right is the one we threw on first, and the fire was really hot, so it got the skin got really crispy, so Richard moved it to the far side, where it's a lot cooler.

We're in Hakipuʻu Valley.

It's a small ahupuaʻa in on the windward side, my family's own property out here for 40 something years now, and we haven't done huli chicken for a really long time.

For Nick and his family, huli huli chicken is a new business venture.

Yeah, so the original property is actually Coral Kingdom.

Huli huli chicken is our staple, and which is why we kind of rebranded and named it Yummy Huli Huli Chicken, separated the restaurant from, like, the whole retail.

And the recipe of the chicken has sort of refined over the years, and it's finally gotten to the point where we're really confident with it this past year.

So this is, like, my mom's like, take and recipe, and it's something I grew up with, and a lot of the people on this part Island grew up with so.

Huli huli chicken is just really good in general, like rotisserie chicken is hard to beat.

On average in a day, we probably pump 300 chickens out in a day.

And on busy days, it can go up to maybe 500.

Serving hundreds of chickens every day is not an easy task.

From the wood all the way to the marination process and to the dry rub and then getting it on the grill, it's a really complex process.

So we defrost the chickens overnight, and we have the defrosted chickens cleaned, gutted and prepped and ready to go for the marinade.

What Frans is doing right now is he's butterfly cutting it right down the chest.

Most importantly though, it's when we throw the marinade inside it kind of gets inside of the body of the chicken too, when it's fileted and cut open.

So all the filet chickens that we have will marinate it overnight.

In these buckets about 50 chickens each, and we kind of let it soak for 24 hours, and then the next morning we get it ready for our dry rub.

We have maybe five or six rods that we run every day.

We pin the body of the chicken on to the rod, and we snap the legs and wings on with these pinning rods.

When we swing it over to the grill, it's sort of now just musical chairs.

We're just playing playing with the fire, the strength of the heat.

Huli huli chicken is all about low and slow.

You know, you can't get flare ups.

You cannot get hot spots because you dry out the chicken.

You get a flare ups.

You're burning the chicken.

You're burning the sugars.

You want that sugar to slowly caramelize, and that's the key part, right?

So you got to go low and slow.

The good food takes time.

And that's, you know, it's always going to be that way.

It's hard to do.

You can't get that quite get that same texture and flavor in an oven, right?

You still have that smokey flavor from the firewood and everything, but, yeah, it's a very unique process, especially when rotisserie is done with firewood.

You wanna try one?

Okay?

Do you want the two ounce or the four ounce sauce?

Okay.

Huli huli chicken, to me, is synonymous with fundraising, right?

This is before Zippy's, chili tickets or Regal Bakery or anything like that.

And to me, that's part of our DNA, about uniquely Hawaiian, uniquely Hawaiʻi.

How's it going?

Yeah, easy?

Easy?

This is a fundraiser for a baseball team, and you do a fundraiser, we'll ask you to help us out.

But normally, there's not this many people that come out.

Thanks, they'll call it on this side okay?

Thanks.

Good to see you.

Huli huli chicken is a timeless tradition that continues to bring friends and family together.

Prepared with love and care.

Huli huli chicken holds a special place in the heart of Hawaiʻi's food culture.

We like helping people.

We like, like watching the kids, like, oh, we may- We went to so and so, and we won the championship, and they're stoked.

And, like, we helped them get there.

People were like, hope you never leave.

I hope you don't ever stop cooking chicken.

And that makes us feel like getting up every day and like, okay, get it done.

And a lot of times we'll see like, the same people every weekend, and it feels good.

It's a great job.