First K-pop cafe in city for fans of Korean music
OWNER SAYS HER DAUGHTERS ARE MASSIVE FANS OF GENRE
YOU may not have heard of Red Velvet, BTS or Black Pink. But to an entire community of fans these are global superstars.
Now a cafe and store has opened in Nottingham with the aim of being the city’s one-stop K-pop shop.
Fans can pick up music and merchandise from The House of PKL which can be found on the top floor of St James’ Terrace before heading to the street food cafe below for a bowl of instant ramen, made famous by the K-dramas (Korean TV dramas).
Fans of K-pop have been forced to travel to other cities such as London or Birmingham to get their fix as there is nothing for therm in Nottingham despite an army of fans and K-pop university societies.
Owner Anastasia Tsappis, from Wollaton, decided to open the store after her three daughters became fans of the music.
She said: “We were having to travel to Birmingham, Manchester or London to take the girls to places that sold the merchandise.
“I got fed up with hearing them say, ‘I wish there was a K-pop store in Nottingham.’ We wanted to give them the experience that they wanted so it’s for them and fans like them.
“When it comes to the cafe, when we travel, we often have to find something to eat. Some of the fans will go to random cafes after they buy the merchandise, open what they have bought and put it on Instagram.
“There isn’t really anywhere for teenagers to go. Some of the bars let the students hold nights there once a week or once a month. But the younger ones have nowhere to go and just sit.”
The shop is already fully stocked with beautifully decorated albums, stickers, socks and the all-important official fan light sticks that concert-goers wave at performances.
Anastasia says the plan is to bring new exciting dishes to the city while keeping it simple and affordable.
There will also be events held in the evenings.
“We are going to do Korean street food along with Boba tea and hot drinks.
“We are going to be doing Korean corn dogs and I think we are the only ones outside of London doing it.
“When we go to London, we have to stand in line for an hour to get them. We are waiting on the machine to arrive in order to be able to make them,” she explained.
“We are hoping to start offering food in the next few weeks. We will also be doing instant ramen too which you see in the K-dramas. We have ramen for people to buy along with the corn dogs and Tteok-kkochi which are Korean rice cakes.”
She added: “You have them on a skewer, grill them with sauces. We aren’t going to try to do restaurant food because we aren’t a restaurant. People can come and have an experience of Korean street food.”
Transforming the building from its former life as a Caribbean-themed restaurant to a white cafe has not been easy. The building was also a wine bar at one stage and is over 350 years old.
“Everything was bright orange with palm trees so we spent a lot of time painting.
“It’s a listed building so we can’t do anything which is why we have the pillars everywhere. We’ve had to apply thousands of coats of paint to try to cover the walls.”
Anastasia has plans for the store and cafe once it gets going in the next few months. She would like to look at moving closer to the city centre and also, holding events in the cafe.
“At the moment, teenagers can go to parks, town or bowling but there aren’t many meeting places that are safe to hang out in where they feel welcome to gather.
“Sometimes people don’t want to drink but they still want to get out of the house and socialise which they can do here.”
The new cafe plans to open from Thursday to Sunday.
I got fed up with hearing my daughters say ‘I wish there was a K-pop store in Nottingham’ Anastasia Tsappis