A menu page for Jacksonville Burger, a restaurant in Japan.

A one-time exchange student who spent his teen years in the Rogue Valley recently paid a visit to one of the most memorable places of his life: the town where he discovered gourmet hamburgers.

Owner of a chain of four Jacksonville Burger shops — located on Japan’s island of Hokkaido — Seiichi Kanada grew up like most kids around the world, eating burgers and french fries from McDonalds.

Sent to Southern Oregon to attend high school, Kanada spent three years at St. Mary’s High School and completed his senior year at South Medford High in 1994.

“My parents wanted to send me here to immerse me in the culture and language,” Kanada said during his recent trip. “And of course, to experience the food.”

After starting at a language preparatory school in San Jose for six months, Kanada moved to Southern Oregon where he was hosted by Jacksonville residents Larry and Linda Smith. Larry Smith, a teacher and local historian, hosted Kanada for part of the time and also placed him with a handful of other families during his four-year stay, resulting a large extended Oregon family for the teen. Kanada refers to Smith as “my American dad” and has traveled to Southern Oregon to check in with him over the years.

“I came back before I got married in 2004. I had to introduce my wife to him,” Kanada said.

“And then of course Larry came to my wedding.”

While Kanada credits Smith with guiding him through high school, access to quality American food was nearly as impactful. Enjoying a tasty handmade burger one day at a restaurant just outside Jacksonville, Kanada said the wheels for a future business venture were set into motion.

“It was just a little old-style restaurant between Medford and Jacksonville. It was the first time I had a real homestyle hamburger,” Kanada said. “I remember it was really shocking because it was just so good. I had only had burgers from McDonald’s before that.”

Kanada, whose parents were restaurateurs, ate his fair share of American food during his time in the U.S. For his high school senior project, he researched how to start a business and ran his own hot dog cart in Alba Park during the 1994 Pear Blossom festival.

“My senior project gave me a good chance to learn how to do a food business in the United States,” he said.

“I kept thinking about opening a restaurant with really good burgers. That wasn’t something we had in Japan at the time.”

After graduating from South Medford High, Kanada spent four years studying business in Montana and stayed for one final year, on a work visa. Finally returning to Japan, he faced some culture shock after a decade in the U.S.

He longed for the rural feel of Oregon. And he craved American style hamburgers.

Venturing into the computer industry and trying his hand at several other jobs, a move to Tokyo 15 years ago gave him a final nudge towards opening a hamburger shop.

“Where I lived before, we only had McDonald’s. One day when I was working in Tokyo — there were a few restaurants serving expensive gourmet burgers — I checked a couple restaurants out that had those fancy burgers. I figured it was a good chance to see what they were making. It made me start thinking of creating my own,” he said.

“Tokyo is so crowded. After being so long in Oregon and Montana, I was missing the woods and the outdoor stuff… so I moved to Sapporo and started my burger business there. Jacksonville and Southern Oregon were a part of my identity. It was the place I had the best burger I had ever eaten. Just the taste of it, I can still remember. I had to name it Jacksonville.”

Kanada said it took “three hard years” for his concept to resonate with locals in Sapporo. Once it did, he grew the business to four locations around Hokkaido.

“At first, people were used to buying Big Mac combos for like 500 yen, and I was charging double,” he said. “But they figured out that the quality was better. … There are a lot more restaurants doing it now. It’s a growing industry.”

While the burger shops offer American style burgers and French fries, and even coleslaw, some slight changes were made to appeal to taste buds in Kanada’s native land. Burgers are made with a combination of Japanese and imported U.S. beef. Burger topping options include pineapple, egg, salsa, jalapeno and sour cream.

“Another thing that is different, Americans make bacon really crispy. Japanese don’t do that. They do it … almost raw. When I first started the burger place, I would do it American style. I had a lot of customers say, ‘Oh, this bacon is burnt!’ I explained to them, but they don’t understand so I had to adjust a few things to make them the Japanese way.”

Whether the bacon is crispy or floppy, Kanada didn’t waver in offering a few American flavors at Japan-based Jacksonville Burger. His top selling burger? The Western Barbecue burger. And he introduced a favorite American frozen treat.

“Nobody in Japan knew about the malt shakes. They all know malt as a shot of whiskey,” said Kanada.

“We try to offer some combinations that Japanese don’t usually have, even if we have to change some things a little bit.”

Smith sounds like a proud papa when he talks about his once-borrowed teen, now a father and business owner. Smith said he never could have imagined a burger shop in Japan named for the place he once shared with an exchange student.

“It was that senior project, with the hot dogs, that really turned the tide for him. It was really neat to watch him go through the process. … I remember I borrowed some tables from the school. He set up a whole business, right there in Alba Park,” Smith said.

“He told me, in doing that senior project, he realized he could do it.”

Smith approves of the business moniker.

“It’s apparently pronounced, in Japanese, in a way that comes pretty close to how we say it,” Smith noted.

“It means nothing to Japanese, but any Americans walking by will see the name and probably stop in for a burger. There are 20-some Jacksonvilles around the United States, so it’s familiar.”

Smith smiles at the notion that Kanada forged a connection that remains three decades later.

“He always tells me,” Smith said, “Jacksonville changed his life.”