Plugged into Quality

Big Island

Lotus Café is 100 percent solar powered by 450 solar panels on its roof.

When Howie Simon and his wife, Ladda, opened the Lotus Café almost two years ago, there were already about a half-dozen Thai restaurants serving the tight-knit Kona community.  But that didn’t stop them.

In fact, they so believed in the quality of their product that they didn’t try to hide that their menu was perhaps one of the priciest in town: “We’ve always believed that people are willing to spend a few extra dollars to get really high-quality products,” says Simon. 

He was right.

Simon projects 2008 revenues will increase by about 15 percent over last year. “Our goal was never to be the cheapest Thai restaurant in Kona; it was to be the best,” he says. Customers appreciate that everything served at Lotus Café is made from scratch. That means nothing on the menu is made with canned or bottled sauces, artificial flavorings or preservatives.  The menu was designed around locally grown fruits and vegetables, some of which are farmed by the Simons in their own 1-acre garden. In fact, about one-third of Lotus Café’s menu consists of vegetarian dishes — a rarity no matter what city you live in.

The café is also 100 percent solar powered, with 450 solar panels on the roof. Simon says he was dumbfounded when he received his first electricity bill, which ended up being more than double what he had budgeted for. “At $0.44 per kilowatt hour, we would’ve been out of business in no time!” he says. That’s when he knew he needed to invest in an alternative-energy solution.

“Now, instead of paying $4,000 a month for electricity, we pay $1,800 in lease payments [for the solar panels],” he says. “We’re saving a lot of money each month, plus we’re doing something good for the planet. The added bonus is that our customers really believe in what we’re doing here, and that feels good.”

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