And Now Featuring

This is an exciting feature story for my newswriting class. Thanks to all who helped!

Raymond Quain was a student at BYU when his roommate talked him into trying the Bamboo Hut, and he got hooked. It was a tiny building tucked into a parking lot across the street from BYU, but it quickly became an “upper-classmen only” hang-out spot that students nicknamed “The Bamboo Shmut.”
    “You could get a whole lunch for $2,” said Raymond Quain, a BYU alumnus who now resides in California. “I went there all the time—all I ever got was the chicken. If I had an extra quarter I could get the three-piece chicken.”
    The Hawaiian family that owned the Bamboo Hut eventually sold their recipes. The new owner moved the restaurant further away from BYU, yet its history was not forgotten. A large blue flag with the crest of the cougars has a place on the wall beside the palm tree, less an artifact from the past than an actual feature of the Bamboo Hut’s continuing story.
    Morgan Mix, a 19-year-old biology major from North Carolina, was impressed with the pineapple barbeque sauce. “Some people claim that they have pineapple barbeque sauce or something, but then it doesn’t taste different,” she said as she selected a sweet potato fry for dipping. “This is true pineapple sauce.”
    Forrest Addams, a customer from Pleasant Grove, Utah, looked to satiate a passion for the exotic with authentic Hawaiian food. Addams served in the military for over 20 years. His travels took him to Korea, Okinawa, and the “fabled shores of Tripoli” in Libya. Addams viewed a nice dinner at the Bamboo Hut as a staple of retirement. “I turned around and saw the bamboo,” he said.
    Bamboo goes without saying. Lava-lavas decorate the Bamboo Hut’s interior as well, with thick rope railings leading customers past the menu to the food. Jessica Torres, who has worked at the Hawaiian grill for two years, recommends the pork ribs and the sesame chicken. She recounted the story of its early days, when lines of students waiting for chicken, and pineapple on a stick extended out the door.  Now, the Bamboo Hut is a nice, calm place to work, Torres said.
    A woman hurried in for the $3.99 chicken deal. Prices have gone up since 1984, but the Bamboo Hut’s past is still remembered in its present. A sign by the door reads, “Every part of Hawaiian life is touched by legend.”