Friendship comes first
From Seoul to Toronto, sticking together has been a recipe for success for these entrepreneurs
Longtime friends Chae Kim, Mi Young Park and Yanghui Chae have given new meaning to the term friendly competition.
The Korean immigrants, who arrived in Toronto at different times with their respective families, own eateries on the same neighbourhood strip.
This direct competition might seem like a poor decision to the business-minded but for these loyal friends, sticking together has deepened their friendship and been the recipe for their success as entrepreneurs.
Sitting at a table at MeNami, a hip udon and sake bar in North York, Kim’s latest venture, the three businesswomen, who are in their late 50s, reminisce about their university days in Seoul. As they speak, they dip in and out of their mother tongue, with Chae providing the English translation when needed. “When we younger, much more fun. Go clubs. Dancing. Lot of energy,” Park says.
“We’re still young, only turning 60 soon,” Kim counters, and they all burst into giggles. The laughs come frequently as the three women — Kim and Chae are sisters — recount how they came to own a string of successful restaurants offering Asian fare, including two just storefronts from each other, south of the bustling Yonge and Finch intersection — the aforementioned MeNami and the northern location of Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu.
Their partnership started in 2005, when the three women transformed Seoul House restaurant on Dufferin St. in North York into a modern Korean barbecue establishment.
Park, 57, and Chae, 56, met at Kyung Hee University in Seoul where they studied music. Kim, 57, was studying psychology at Ewha Womans University. They became fast friends. Park married and moved to Argentina in 1987. But they kept in touch.
Park moved to Toronto in 1997 and when Chae’s daughter came for high school in 2002, Park helped her settle in. Chae and the rest of her family moved here in 2004. Kim and her family came a year later.
“At the time, there was a big boom of Korean people coming to Canada for their children’s education,” Kim says.
Chae had operated a Korean barbecue house in Kangnam, South Korea. “It’s like the Soho of Korea,” Kim explains. “When she came here, she thought there was lots of potential here. So we opened Seoul House.”
Then one by one, beginning with Park, they ventured out, opening their own restaurants.
Each woman followed distinct styles of cuisine. Park is concentrating on simple Korean food at affordable prices and Chae on Korean barbecue fare.
“I didn’t want to do authentic Korean because (Chae and Park’s) food is so good, I didn’t want complaints with my food,” Kim jokes. So she took an experimental approach to Asian staples with her eye on the young, hipster non-Korean crowd.
Although the restaurant industry is very competitive, Kim, Young and Chae were able to remain good friends by supporting each other through the ups and downs of the process. When Park opened her first solo restaurant, Chae and Kim were right outside offering moral support.
“Yanghui and I were sitting in a car on the opposite side of the street. We were counting how many people are going in,” Kim recalls. “It was a cold winter night and the streets were empty. “In the first hour, maybe there were 10 people.”
“At that time, not many condos in this neighbourhood,” Park adds.
The women agreed that given Canada’s long winters, a Korean clientele would be interested in hot stews. They didn’t anticipate the classic dishes such as kimchi soon tofu and stone pot bibimbap being a hit with non-Koreans as well.
During a recent weekday afternoon visit to Park’s Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu in North York, a constant hum of diners is carrying on conversations in Korean, Farsi and English.
Danilo Lins, who lives a short walk away, orders the bulgogi soup every time he comes in. “One day I am going to try #9 (broiled barbecue beef dolsotbab). It looks really good.” This is the first visit for his friend Su Jung, “and she’s Korean!” he says, adding, “I’m Brazilian.”
Meanwhile, Elena Yun eats up the street at MeNami once a week. “My favourite is sukiyaki,” she says, referring to the one-pot dish described in the menu as beef, napa, green onion, shiitake mushroom, oyster mushroom, harusame and chrysanthemum. “I love the udon here. It’s very chewy. They make it fresh.”
The success of their respective restaurants is even sweeter because of their friendship, Park says. “When I was in Argentina, I miss my friends,” she says. “Here, sometimes life is not easy. But in last 15 years, more happy days than not happy.”
They don’t often get a chance to get together these days, as they are all busy with their own restaurants. “When we meet, we don’t want to talk about food,” Kim says. “When we opened Seoul House, we were running around so much — some day we’re dishwasher, some day busboy,” Kim says, as Chae chimes: Waitress. Cleaning washroom. “We still work hard, but those days we were working 15 hours a day, seven days a week.”
“Look at our hands,” Kim says, comparing blisters and burn marks with Park, before noticing Chae’s manicured fingers. “Oh! My sister took time to make her hands look nice today,” she says, even as Chae points to her own blisters.
“When we started, we just wanted to make enough money to cover the grocery bills,” Chae says, with Kim translating. “We had a humble start. Now we are proud we have something to pass on to our kids.”