If your not having fun, it’s just work

Twin brothers Ben (left) and Ken Lukehart opened Islander’s Restaurant, at Terry’s Corner on Camano Island, after working at Jimmy’s Pizza and Pasta for 11 years. The brothers are opening a second Islander’s location May 1, in Stanwood. PHOTO BY JEREMIAH O Some people can point to a moment in the past that shot them down the path to their present. For twins Ben and Ken Lukehart, the 30- year-old owners of Islander’s Restaurant, that moment came when they were 12.

“I’m not going to say we grew up poor,” said Ken, “but things were tight.”

So, when school rolled around each year, their mom took them shopping at KMart and picked out three outfits each – which didn’t go over so well at school.

“We weren’t beat up or anything, cause we’re big guys, but we got made fun of,” Ken continued.

The year they turned 12, the twins decided enough was enough.

They told their mom they didn’t want the green jeans she picked out.

Her reply was straightforward.

“You get jobs, you can pick your own clothes.”

From that day on, the Lukeharts said, they had jobs and money.

They started their own lawn mowing and landscaping business, eventually caring for 45 yards in a scheduled rotation they kept up until they wrangled jobs at Jimmy’s Pizza and Pasta, in Stanwood – Ben started washing dishes when he was 14, and got Ken hired when they turned 15.

Their lawn business had been so successful that they lost money the first two years they worked at Jimmy’s.

The brothers worked their way through the ranks, old-school restaurant style, until they graduated high school and returned from their senior trip to an offer.

Would they like to run the joint?

They would, thank you very much.

And they did, successfully, for the next seven years, until they decided to move on.

The problem was, they didn’t know where to move on to, and they realized they missed the crazy world of running a restaurant.

“We tried driving cement trucks—that didn’t work,” they said.

“I’m a social person,” Ken said. “I can’t just sit in a truck and listen to the radio by myself all day.”

He missed the customers, each of whom had a different story.

The realization burst upon Ben more dramatically. He rolled a loaded truck off a dike.

“I was young, married, my wife was pregnant and I almost died,” Ben said. “We opened (Islander’s) three weeks later.”

Islander’s, at Terry’s Corner on Camano Island, will celebrate its three-year anniversary in August, and by then the brothers will have a second location as well. Their new restaurant will open next to Amigo’s, by the theater uptown, on May 1.

The location has been a bit of a curse in the past, but the brothers are confident they can over come it.

“That’s what we do,” they stated.

The Lukeharts’ second restaurant will be built on principles they established at the Terry’s Corner location, many of which they learned, one way or another, at Jimmy’s.

The brothers know “people enjoy honesty” and that it’s important to “stick to your guns on quality— quality of food, quality of people, quality of experience.”

In these respects, the brothers lead by example.

They choose to take an active role in the restaurant, often working 100-hour weeks, because they believe owning a business is a responsibility.

“We’re not here to make a million dollars,” they said. “We just want to provide for our families and do our community a service.”

Part of that service is sourcing the best ingredients possible for their customers.

“We get as much

“We get as much local, organic produce as possible. It’s expensive, but we have to support the community we come from,” Ben said. The same goes for their meat—“everything is the best we can do,” he added.

Their goal, the Lukeharts said, is to serve customers consistently, efficiently and with professionalism in a family atmosphere. A fun atmosphere.

“We treat our employees the way we want them to treat our customers,” Ken said.

Then the brothers want those customers to fill out comment cards, so they can give them what they want.

In fact, that’s how the current menu evolved.

“We started out with steak and seafood,” Ben said, “and business was terrible. That’s not what people wanted.”

The Lukeharts started asking what people did want, and then they cooked it. To them, it’s one more way to give back to the community.

These values stem, ultimately, from the brothers’ passion for what they do.

“We love living here, we love being here, we love making people happy,” Ben said. And, yeah, they love their food.

Ben’s favorite is spaghetti pizza, which shows up on the menu as “The Italian.”

“It’s meat sauce, noodles, more meat sauce, sausage, cheese and oregano,” he said. “The crust is the bread—it’s an entire Italian meal on a slice of pizza.”

Ken’s perfectly content with a “Beach BBQ Chicken Burger,” which he describes as “melt-in-your-mouth heaven.”

Just don’t ask the Lukeharts to eat them wearing green jeans — these days, they’re choosing their own clothes.