Min Cho Ko, owner, Son of Egg, Albany
I talked with Min Cho Ko about opening for business during a pandemic. Ko, who previously owned a deli-coffeehouse in Portland, Ore., moved to the Capital Region when her husband took a job with Globalfoundries. With their two boys at college, she cooked for young people at her church and found they loved her food, from burdock or bulgogikimchi kimbap rolls to bulgogi bowls. Opening Son of Egg, on Madison Avenue near Lark Street, was a way to bring her twist on popular Korean dishes to a wider audience. She signed the lease in February before the shutdown in mid-march.
“I didn’t feel I had a way to go back,” she said. “We started the interior work to open so I had to continue. With the pandemic, I couldn’t have kitchen helpers; I couldn’t hire anyone I didn’t know. My son Justin (an RPI graduate) came on to help. My husband does deliveries. We opened as a family. My son knew how to use social media, so he manages the restaurant and gets the word out.”
Getting the word out has not been hard. Son of Egg’s location is on a corner that has long been a popular spot for takeout, and they quickly expanded contactless payment via online and text ordering, added Korean ice creams and sodas and spawned a viral Instagram feed with posts like “Eggdele,” a chorus of singing painted eggs, a guess– the-sneaker-size competition and a sidewalk burdock root battle to fight coronavirus. We have Justin to thank for levity in trying times.