Family-Style Dining: Dae Gee Korean BBQ invites you to "pig out"

I had no food service experience when I opened the first Dae Gee Korean BBQ more than 10 years ago. I had never worked in a restaurant. Never bussed tables. Never cooked in my life. Instead, I worked in the family dry cleaning business for much of my 20s until my mother-in-law approached me with the idea of opening a Korean barbeque restaurant.

Like me, my mother-in-law is Korean American, but unlike me, she’s a seasoned cook and even owned a Korean restaurant in Hawaii in the 1990s. She developed the menu while I tended to branding, business permits, payroll, and other operational details. We opened the very first Dae Gee restaurant in the Denver suburb of Westminster in 2012 and have since been captivating a wide audience with my youthful energy and my mother-in-law’s homemade recipes.

Today, Dae Gee has firmly anchored itself as a modern full-service Korean barbeque spot progressively blending Korean food tradition with American culture. In fact, culinary star and restaurateur Guy Fieri, who previously featured Dae Gee on his reality television series, “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” has said of our franchise, “This isn’t just any Korean restaurant. This one’s off the hook!”

Why Korean barbecue?

From music to movies and technology to fashion, the world has fallen in love with everything Korean. The collective results of that Korean coolness, which has flourished across the world over the past decade or more, is also increasing the popularity of Korean food.

Yelp recently reported that relative demand for Korean cuisine grew 140% in Phoenix, 80% in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Boston, 70% in New York, and 50% in Atlanta, San Jose, Chicago, and Houston. After all, with a complex mix of flavors and cuisines plus proteins, vegetables, grains, and assorted spices, Korean food is a great choice for the health-conscious and clean-eating consumer.

It’s not just about food; it’s about the experience.

When Americans (or Westerners in general) go out to dinner, they often get a huge personal plate of one type of food. Maybe you’ll throw in a side of potatoes for some variety, but for the most part, you’re eating one thing for your meal, like steak, chicken, or pasta. In Korea, however, meals usually feature one large communal dish for everyone to share. That can range from grilling your own pork to digging into a large boiling pot of ramen.

Typically, you don’t have your own plate and things go right from the grill/dish to your mouth. This family style of eating becomes a centerpiece for conversation with your family and friends. It’s no longer “Do you want to try mine?” It’s, “Here try this!” In addition to the main item, you almost always have “banchan,” which are small coaster-sized dishes filled with little bites to try.

Let’s pig out!

Dae Gee, which means pig in Korean, is about pigging out or pig out: doing everything to the maximum. Whether it’s a crazy red mohawk, like the one I sport, or indulging in eccentric flavors and filling up, it’s about pushing the limits of how things are done.

Dae Gee is known for progressively blending Korean food tradition with American culture and exposing customers to an interactive experience that allows them to cook their own meat on grill tops at their tables when they dine. 

Customers have the option to choose from a variety of traditional Korean meats like Galbee (Beef Short Ribs), Sam Gyeob Sal (Sliced Pork Belly), and Dak Bulgogi (Chicken), which are soaked in our secret marinade. Each choice of meat, as well as fish and vegetarian options, can be enjoyed in a bowl, hot stone pot, or tucked inside lettuce and eaten as a wrap. Entrees can be piled high with your choice of side dishes, including rice, fresh slaw, kimchee, broccoli, radishes, and fish cakes. Spicy sauce can add to the flavors.

In short, Dae Gee lights up your senses and enriches the full human experience. Thanks to generations of recipes passed down, we leave our customers well fed with culture, humor, and top-quality Korean food.

Better together

Since our 2012 debut, Dae Gee has grown to five restaurants serving throngs of customers throughout Colorado’s Front Range, and we recently opened our first restaurant outside of the United States in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Our brand has more than 20 units in various stages of development across Indiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, and Mexico. We plan to open as many as five to 10 new restaurants nationwide over the next 12 months and at least that many each year thereafter.

Dae Gee is also focused on expanding its international footprint across Australia, England, Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan, among other select European and Asian markets.

There is no preference between single-unit or multi-unit operators. The ideal candidate should not only have strong financial backing, but also an ambitious and perseverant mindset.

To augment this growth, Dae Gee is seeking franchise partners looking to get in on the ground floor of an emerging brand in the increasingly popular Korean cuisine industry. Including a franchise fee of $45,000, the total investment to open a 1,500-2,000 square-foot restaurant ranges from $408,875 to $948,625.

Joe Kim is the founder and CEO of Dae Gee Korean BBQ.