Hard Rock-er
to take on Tiki’s
Eric "Wolf" Levine
» Started last week as director of culinary operations for the 272-seat Tiki's Grill & Bar at the Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel. The restaurant opened in October 2002.
» Levine, 44, previously worked with Hard Rock Cafe America/International for 17 years as operations manager/ kitchen manager. He helped open and manage eight new Hard Rock restaurants in Honolulu, Chicago, Houston, California and Australia. In the past three years, he opened and served as general manager of Sam Snead's Tavern at the Navy-Marine Golf Course near the airport. » Levine succeeds Executive Chef Fred DeAngelo, who left Tiki's to pursue other interests.
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Answer: When I first came to Honolulu I met my future wife. We got married in 1991 when I was in Australia and she's from here. When I was traveling around a lot, I said there's no place to be other than Honolulu. I was tired of planes and airports.
Q: What are the most interesting stories from opening and working at Hard Rock restaurants?
A: We had in Chicago Robert Palmer play at a concert inside the restaurant at opening night, in 1986. That was fabulous. In Sydney, we catered a backstage event for AIDS and heart research and there was concert by INXS and about 10 other bands. There was 50,000 people in the park and we raised $100,000.
Q: How do you manage something that big?
A: You just have to be organized. That's my forte, organization. We fed 2,500 people to order and turned the place into a cafe in the park. We turned it into a satellite Hard Rock in a day and raised $100,000.
Q: After Honolulu, what's your favorite place?
A: After Honolulu I would say Sydney, Australia. It's kind of L.A. weather with a San Francisco attitude and very, very laid back. It makes Hawaii people look industrious.
Q: What was your most important lesson in restaurant management?
A: The best one is to gradually over time learn to deal with people and different personalities. I think 95 percent of the job is people and 5 percent is all the little details that are pretty easy to manage. Employees and customers.
I work with people who say "I got all that down and all that down but I'm not good with people" and I say you're in the wrong business. I also have learned different languages. I speak Tagalog, Malay, Chinese. I can just about tell a dirty joke in about five different languages.
Q: You're attracted to multiethnic places?
A: I was born in San Francisco, which is multiethnic too. I never got on to seeing a difference until I moved around the states a bit. That's why Hawaii's very comfortable too. Lucky for me I ended up here.
Q: Like your predecessor at Tiki's, do you have chef background?
A: I do have menu development background. It's much more operational issues and staff that's more of my forte. I'm definitely not in the Hawaii regional cuisine gang.
Q: Do you plan many changes?
A: For the short term nothing's going to change. If you've ever heard the expression if it isn't broke don't fix it: It's a great place and we look forward to expanding on that. We're definitely not going to turn the place upside down. I want to build a big lunch business. We're going to add some items to lunch. That's a big area of opportunity for us.
Q: How did you get the nickname "Wolf"?
A: When I was working at Universal Studios in California, everyone in the kitchen had an animal nickname. So we had Moose, Animal, Bear and myself. I was playing around with different names, Lightning, Buddy, and I had a name tag that said "Howling Wolf."
It caught on and it's stayed around for 25 years. It's a name that easily sticks in peoples' minds.
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