DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Vincent Kwon, a homeless drug addict less than two years ago, turned his life around after what he calls healing from God. Now, the owner of Grindz restaurant hires other recovering drug addicts to help them make something of their lives. Kwon is shown here with one of his restaurant's plate lunches.

Restaurateur offers help to drug addicts

Vincent Kwon gives workers a second chance like he had

Vincent Kwon has not moved all that far from the Chinatown alleys where he scrounged out a living as a homeless drug addict just 22 months ago.

"I wasn't a nice drug addict. I was a mean drug addict. If you walked down an alley, I would take your purse," he said.

Kwon still spends most of his time "in an alley next to a rubbish can," but that is in a tiny restaurant on Chaplain Lane off Fort Street Mall that he calls his own: Grindz.

Right now, the restaurant has 100 customers a day, mostly college students, and three employees who are in drug rehabilitation programs. Two have lasted as long as six months.

Kwon confessed that he burns instant saimin, but luckily he can use recipes from his mother and his wife, who are excellent cooks.

He is also trying to help recovering drug addicts make something of their lives. He has promised them that if they stay sober and train with him for two years, he will set them up with their own lunch wagon.

The turnaround came over-night when God healed him of a 15-year addiction to "ice" or crystal methamphetamine, Kwon said.

He started doing drugs in 1989, but for 12 years he was a "functioning addict" who co-owned a few businesses. He had a wife and eventually three children. In the 13th year of his addiction, his partners rejected him, he lost his businesses and arguments with his wife were at an all-time high. For the next two years, "I hit rock bottom," Kwon said, living on the streets and dealing drugs.

"I had a gram-and-a-half habit a day, which is pretty steep," he said.

One night, his wife picked him up downtown and pleaded with him to come home, Kwon said. He did so reluctantly, and in the huge fight that followed, his wife, Glynis, cried out, "God, help me," and raised her arms up, sobbing. Kwon shouted, "There is no God!"

In the shower, he said, he continued yelling at God: "'If you really are God, then heal me or kill me, because I can't quit.' I begged him to heal me because I had tried a thousand times to quit."

"I woke up the next morning, Oct. 29, and went to the bathroom. But I felt funny. I realized I didn't pick up my (drug) pipe for the first time in three years," Kwon said. Before that day, "I literally could not open my eyes without smoking the pipe. I kept it right next to my bed" so it was there as soon as he woke.

"I knew it was the hand of God. I got chicken skin all over. The first minute (without drugs) was an eternity. And then I was (drug-free) for an hour, and then it was a day and then a month, and here we are, 22 months later," Kwon said.

Kwon said giving a job to recovering addicts is probably their desperately needed "last chance," as it was for him when someone gave him a loan to open Grindz in March. Steve Comes, Ewa Beach branch manager of First Hawaiian Bank, is a spiritual man who "took a huge leap of faith" and loaned Kwon $25,000 because "he knew that I could do it."

At the time, Kwon had no job, income or credit. But Comes knew he had a good business plan, Kwon said, and had opened a restaurant before. Before that, Kwon "literally begged for a job" at fast-food outlets and more places than he could count, but his drug record was the deterrent.

Kwon hopes giving his employees the incentive to own their own businesses will keep them on the road to recovery because not having a job or working for minimum wage the rest of their lives will not save them from a bleak future.

His program "is not a solve-all for every single addict," Kwon said, but only those who "truly, truly want to better their lives." It is for those who cannot find a chance anywhere else, "and they gotta want it bad because it won't be easy," he said.

Although he understands what an uphill battle it is for an addict to gain self-esteem and learn responsibility, Kwon said he refuses to treat his employees like children because they have to develop "real-life skills to cope in real life."

But the restaurant's draw has been "the love flowing from the staff," Kwon said. "I really appreciate every single person walking through the door, and my workers feel the same way. Most of my customers are repeat customers because they feel the warmth."