At Jenny and Youn Song’s new southside cafe, Korean flavors permeate the menu. | Photo by Mark Bialek
Walk down the fashionable shopping streets of Seoul, South Korea, and you’ll see a variety of homegrown food brands. There will be branches of Tous Les Jours, a bakery café that offers plentiful choices of pastries, breads, and cakes. There also might be the big names in Korean fried chicken—Bonchon and bb.q—which peddle extra-crispy bites with flavorful sauces.
These days, there’s no need for Ann Arborites to get on a plane. Each of those names has come to town, and if speculation around the business community is correct, they could be joined by H Mart, the Asian grocery store chain that’s said to be scouting for a location.
Ann Arbor is becoming a culinary Koreatown, with multiple choices of dining along with other businesses whose owners have roots in South Korea. “Ann Arbor has the right mix of household income and demographics” to support them, says R.J. Hottovy, head of analytical research for Placer.ai, a firm that tracks retail trends.
The new entries have impressive global reach: bb.q has more than 4,100 locations in fifty-nine countries, Tous Les Jours (French for “every day”) has 1,740 worldwide, and Bonchon has over 473 locations around the globe. All tested their wings in Detroit suburbs with large Korean communities, including Troy, Novi, and Farmington, before heading west.
Taeyun Kim, chief development officer of Tous Les Jours parent company CJ Foodville, explains why they thought the brand could do well here: “Ann Arbor is home to innovative food and beverage concepts and the community has long been receptive to a variety of cuisines and flavors, so we could be confident coming in that guests would be open to trying the Tous Les Jours experience,” she emails.
These big-name newcomers might be expected to rattle Ann Arbor’s independent businesses whose owners have Korean roots. But for now, at least, local proprietors say there’s room for everyone.
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“There’s bound to be competition wherever you go,” says Min Kyu Kim, whose growing collection of eateries includes nine Kimchi Box fast-casual restaurants, including one on Plymouth Rd.; Azalea on Main St. (previously Of Rice and Men); and Ondo, a bakery café in the longtime Espresso Royale spot on S. State. “Everyone wants to get bigger and better and stronger,” he says.
Kim is already competing with Korea-based brands at his Kimchi Box restaurants in the Detroit area, including in Troy, Novi, and Northville. “They have deeper pockets than me,” he says of Bonchon and bb.q, and that keeps him on his toes making sure he tracks “what local customers want.”
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The growing number of Korean options convinced Jenny Song to overhaul her menu at her new business, Two Songs Bakery & Cafe on South Industrial Hwy. She and her mother, Youn, opened it last fall after selling the Songbird Café in the Plymouth Road Mall.
The Songbird has a classic coffee-bar menu with espresso drinks and a comfort-food lineup of sandwiches, soup, and pastries. At Two Songs, Korean flavors permeate the menu.
It has a daily assortment of milk buns, some stuffed with Korean bulgogi beef, others with red bean or japchae, stir-fried noodles. There are muffins and pastries flavored with green tea or pandan, a vanilla-like plant with a distinctive bright green color.
“One of the most exciting things [is hearing a customer say] ‘I’ve never tried that before,’” Jenny Song says. “And then they try it, and you just hear them getting so excited.”
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Ann Arbor has been home to Korean immigrants for decades, although in smaller numbers than residents from China and elsewhere in Asia. In 1982, there were an estimated 1,500 Koreans and Korean Americans in Ann Arbor: By 2020, the census counted 2,885 among a Washtenaw County population of 19,732 Asians and Asian Americans.
Eunkyung “Jane” Kim, the co-owner of Plate Sushi & Chicken and Orange Market on Broadway, estimates there are around twenty Korean American–owned restaurants in Ann Arbor, along with dry cleaners, accounting firms, hair salons, lawyers, and accountants.
She estimates her customers are about 60 percent non-Asian, 40 percent Asian. “Even though we have a large Asian population, it is not possible to focus only on them,” Kim says.
She says Westerners are being introduced to Korean food through Korean pop music and dramas such as Squid Game that stream on Netflix and elsewhere. “Ann Arbor has a very diverse population, and the residents and students are all open to different ideas and multicultural experiences,” she says.
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At Tous Les Jours, Taeyun Kim says the menu is broad enough to suit local tastes. “With a bit of menu exploration, I think everyone can find something to love,” she says.
Some customers still need a little education, however. As I waited to talk to Min Kyo Kim at Ondo, a customer walked to the counter, ordered a latte, and asked for a pastry. He was gently directed to pick up a tray and select it himself from the display—standard procedure in Korean cafes, including Tous Les Jours.
The owner has been encouraging customers to move beyond familiar pastries and try more savory offerings, like salt bread (essentially a milk-bread roll topped with salt) and garlic cream cheese rolls.
Min Kyo Kim hopes to see Ann Arbor adopt one of his favorite aspects of Korean culture: a lively spirit. “There’s a funness to food,” he says. “You go out on the street at 10 p.m., and people are eating ramen, or they’re having yakitori. There’s always food and people around. But that culture is missing in America.”
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The local owners say they have felt only minimal impacts from the Trump administration’s tariff wars so far. Song says she already planned to begin phasing out her packaged items, such as ramen and sauces, to focus on foods prepared in-house. Min Kyo Kim says he hasn’t been hit by price increases. But a Chinese company canceled his order for neon signs.
For her part, Jane Kim will be watching closely to see if H Mart ultimately arrives, and what it will mean to Orange Market, which is like a miniature version of the big Korean chain. “I am trying to find the niche area to compete with them while catering to local customers,” she says.
While the big brands can boast size, Hottovy says, local owners have an advantage of their own: “People are looking for an authentic feel,” he says—and nothing’s more authentic than a hands-on owner.