Lucky Junki

He has 20 thriving companies, a fourth-degree black belt, and a plan -- always a plan. Which is why this former Japanese gang leader is a teriyaki-sauce-making global-logistics magnate. Only Junki Yoshida; only in America.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 NEXT

It's not a question of if Junki Yoshida will seize control of the room, but when, and in what guise and key. Will he play the manic, English-mangling, teriyaki-sauce-hawking clown or the ambassador-smooth tycoon responsible for keeping Nike factories around the world supplied with shoe boxes and air soles? Flaunt himself as a Franklinesque self-made American entrepreneur or betray the ghost of a lonely Japanese teenager? Display the traits of his merchant mother or of his artist father? Provoke laughter or command homage?

The room in play is the test kitchen of Sur la Table, an upscale cookware store in the Pearl District of Portland, Oreg. Yoshida sits quietly in a corner, cradling his cell phone in one hand and running the other over his weary eyes.

The past few weeks have been hectic even by Yoshida's frenetic standards. During a whirlwind 10 days in Japan, China, and Korea, he visited factories that produce his lines of outdoor clothing and sporting goods, and called on shipping companies and airlines upon which his logistics and supply-chain management firms depend. Returning to the U.S., Yoshida touched down briefly at his home near Portland, then flew to Minneapolis, where he received an award from a national community college foundation. He then journeyed to Las Vegas to celebrate his wife's birthday, and to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, to deliver a speech to a food-packing association. Finally he returned to Portland, where he presided over the opening of a restaurant he purchased across the road from his home in suburban Troutdale.

Now he sits at Sur la Table, a block away from the art gallery and wine bar he owns with his wife and daughter, waiting to tape segments of his TV spot, "Cooking with Junki," which airs twice a week on a local station. The spot pushes Japanese cuisine in general and, in particular, the Mr. Yoshida's line of sauces that forms the public face and emotional base of Junki Yoshida's 20-company international conglomerate.

"I tired," he growls, his voice barely above a whisper.

The other people in the room -- Yoshida's assistants, the cameraman and producer, and the local TV weatherman who co-hosts the spot -- prick up their ears, waiting to be entertained, enlightened, issued orders, or, as is most often the case with the 54-year-old Yoshida, a combination of all three.

"I tiiiiired!" Yoshida repeats, the growl growing both louder and more playful. He yawns fiercely and rolls his shoulders like a boxer preparing to answer the bell; the cell phone dangles from his fingers. Finally he slaps his knees, squares his shoulders, and rises. By the time he reaches the side of his co-host, Dave Salesky, Yoshida is all glint and holler.

"Hey, in Vegas, I win that horserace, that Kentucky Fried Derby!" he tells Salesky, a tall, fair-haired man whose folksy, small-market charm serves as a perfect foil for Yoshida's intensity. "I put down 100 dollar on that Pennsylvania horse and win 800 dollar! I a rich man!"

Hoo-hah, Junki, you're a card! Kentucky Fried Derby! Eight hundred bucks! Now you can give everyone a raise!

Now Yoshida is rolling. He slips into costume -- this week it's an apron, a white chef's jacket, and an Asian peasant's conical straw hat -- and plows into a rehearsal of the first segment, which will feature the preparation of a teriyaki-style sandwich wrap. Salesky, meanwhile, explains that Yoshida's presence is ubiquitous around Portland, where he serves in roles ranging from port commissioner to benefactor for the city's largest children's hospital.

"I've been working regularly with Junki for a year and a half, and I'm still seeing different sides to him," Salesky says. "When I first met him, all I knew about was Mr. Yoshida's sauce, and that goofy billboard with his picture on it out at the Portland airport. I'd heard something about the work he did for Doernbecher hospital, but nothing about the trade missions with the governor, or the Nike shoe boxes."

The lights go up and the taping begins. Although he rarely cooks anymore outside of these public appearances, Yoshida's kitchen chops are genuine: He grew up helping his mother run a succession of small restaurants and teashops in Kyoto, and 30 years ago brewed the original Mr. Yoshida's sauce on the stove in the basement of his karate studio in Beaverton, Oreg. Now, he deftly layers filling into delicate tissues of rice paper, while at the same time riffing on horseracing, gas prices, and Salesky's mother's visit from Idaho. He mugs relentlessly for the camera, at one point sporting a bowtie pasta on his lip like a mustache.

"Tomato pesto! Garlic! Rice wine!" Yoshida roars as he adds each ingredient.

His foghorn voice blasts forth from the kitchen, stopping shoppers in their tracks out in the store. Which, of course, is the point: Yoshida trained his voice, developed his schtick, and built his empire by grinding out thousands of supermarket demos around the nation. No matter how vast the warehouse store or tiny the grocery, no matter how sophisticated or benighted the customers, Mr. Yoshida always took over the room. He always sold his sauce.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 NEXT

Try a RISK-FREE Issue of Inc. Today!

Renew | Contact Us | Current Issue

Select Services