How a Korean restaurant owner is thriving during the pandemic
When the pandemic first started in March, Joungmin Kim, like many other restaurant owners in Halifax, thought his business would hobble over for a few months at best, if not be closed.
He had just opened a new location on Dutch Village Road in April and was “panicking” about the future of his new investment.
Yet nine months after the city's first lockdown, Kim's restaurant, Backoos Korean To Go Food, is still afloat and expanding.
Sales have gone up by 25 to 30 per cent, according to Kim. And he is hiring four more people to work at one of his three restaurants located in downtown Halifax.
“Once you have convenience, which is delivery, then you have the quality that's the same as dining in, you will just enjoy it so much. That's what happened in South Korea and China,” said Kim.
Kim opened his restaurant with insights and knowledge from the food delivery industry in South Korea, which has been around for more than 50 years.
The menus are the same across the three restaurants, as is the quality. The variety on the menu is limited with almost only staple food and fried chicken, but Kim is meticulous in making sure the quality, as well as the packaging, is superb.
“It is really important when people see it and open it and food is organized and looks good,” said Kim.
Kim said his special way of packing the chicken will keep the air inside and make sure that when the customer opens the box, the food looks fresh — another lesson he learned from unsuccessful restaurants in South Korea's food delivery industry.
“Our delivery system was there for 50 years. We've had times when the food (delivery) was bad. But then a lot of companies (in South Korea) now know how to make the food look like they were five minutes ago at the restaurant,” said Kim.
What Kim is doing is nothing new in his home country. Food delivery has been around in South Korea since 1930 and has recently experienced a boom due to COVID19. South Korea's food delivery market is expected to jump 40 per cent this year to around $15.4 billion from $11 billion in 2019, according to market researcher Euromonitor's data, topped only by China and the United States.
QUALITY AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE
Every morning Kim will come to each location, hours before the restaurant is open, to make sure the material is fresh enough and the restaurant is ready to start the day. He spends generously on food ingredients such as chicken and pepper.
Kim said the process of making the chicken, from marinating to frying not once but twice, can take up to 36 hours.
“We always wanted to do this to really high standards. We're really careful because that could really hurt me, hurt business and people,” said Kim.
A box of Korean fried chicken can cost less than $25 plus delivery fees, using any delivery app Backoos is on.
But then there comes a dilemma that all restaurant owners have: how do they keep already-thin profit margin while still offering good quality?
Kim's answer to that is looking at long-term results.
“If you can only sell this much today or tomorrow, you can sell this for a month, and we repeat the sales, then it's really good for us. And it works. So right now, we're like, 25 to 30 per cent, up (from) before pandemic. That's crazy,” said Kim.
TASTE FROM HOME AND A RECIPE FROM AUSTRALIA
Kim came to Halifax seven years ago with his wife, who is originally from Nova Scotia. He had a business in South Korea where he owned a bar and a restaurant. Kim thought opening a restaurant that has the most popular comfort food from his hometown seemed like a low-risk option.
“What I know better than other people is my food; Korean food.”
Kim then asked his friend, Jean Pierre Hong, who is a celebrity chef in Sydney, Australia, to come up with the secret recipe and started his small bistro in downtown Halifax. Now the business has expanded to three different locations and is thriving during the pandemic. Kim said he's planning to open another location in the coming year.
“Right now it's local. But we want to branch out nationally and internationally, ” said Kim.