::A Geek in Korea::

Nolboo is a character from Korean folk tales. He is the greedy brother of a man named Hungboo. It is also the name of the largest chain of Korean restaurants in the country. These restaurants use the picture of Nolboo as their mascot. It’s my absolute favorite Korean food chain, and every time I eat there I walk out proclaiming it was the best meal I’ve ever had. We had one of the franchise in our old neighborhood. We got introduced to it by a friend, then returned there many times.

When we moved to our current neighborhood, we searched for a replacement restaurant that would take Nolboo’s place. We eventually settled on a small, quiet restaurant that never seemed to draw much attention. The waiting staff was always bored since we were the only customers. We had a feeling that this was
a family owned shop and that they weren’t doing very well. We liked the food, but ate there partly out of guilt. There was nothing spectacular about the meal. It was simply the basic meal you could get anywhere. They weren’t competing on price, taste, or location. It was simply the only place that was consistently empty during the busiest times of night. This continued for a few weeks.

The last time we went to go eat at our family owned restaurant, we saw that a Nolboo Hangari (They have different franchises based on their main dishes) had opened up right across the street. Since they had just opened, we decided to go to Nolboo instead. We told ourselves that the next time we wanted to eat out, we’d go to the family restaurant for pork. We would peer across the street into the windows to see how the family run business was doing. It was empty as always. We enjoyed our meal at Nolboo as always, but thought that the family restaurant had very little chance of lasting long with the more popular chain being across the street.

Today we went to eat in the same area and ended up at Nolboo again. The meal was even better than last time. The guilt is still there about abandoning our old eatery, but the price, service, and food are all better where we eat now. There is nothing compelling us to eat at the old restaurant other than a dislike of chain restaurants, even though Nolboo is the best food in the neighborhood. You want to support independent restaurants to promote diversity, but you also want to walk out of a restaurant with the best tasting food in your stomach.

It’s a hard compromise when you think that people you used to support might be out of business because of a popular chain moving in and taking what business they had. There is plenty of competition for Nolboo in the neighborhood, but it’s consistently packed even a few weeks after it’s opening. The food chain is well known and popular. I don’t want to see the franchise model to supplant Korean local niche restaurants, but they do make a good meal.