Remnants of the once bustling K-Town still linger in Station North.
Old newspaper boxes advertising The Korean Central Daily, one of two periodicals that once circulated in the city, sit by light poles among the vacant buildings with Hangul on the facade. Station North once housed the regional office for the Korean publication.
Looking down on it all is a larger-than-life mural of a man known as Mr. Kim, the founder of Seoul Rice Cake Shop, one of Baltimore’s first Korean-owned businesses, established in the 1970s. It stands as a reminder of the city’s Korean population that once thrived and worked in the area. According to an article from The Baltimore Sun, in 1978 “Estimates of Baltimore’s Korean population [ranged] from 7,000 to 14,000,” the largest Asian American community in Baltimore.
The oldest and last standing restaurant of this bygone era in Baltimore is Jong Kak, a two-story building with an exterior that can easily be missed.
While perhaps nostalgic to those who have known this restaurant, a newcomer during the day could drive by and not see its significance, nestled among shuttered businesses and vacant lots in what can feel like a forgotten part of the city.
But inside Jong Kak, a waft of garlic, a blend of umami that comes from soy sauce and sesame oil, and decades of grilled meat hits your nose. The younger serving staff, mostly students, are dressed in black, and after their initial greeting, blend into the background. A singular large high-definition television displays the latest K-pop music videos on rotation. The restaurant has recently launched an Instagram page, and, along with it, new ways to engage with diners inside the restaurant via a black-and-white instant photo booth and a large Jinro frog, the mascot of a large soju brand, on display. During the day there’s a handful of local business owners patronizing the restaurant, and since it doesn’t close between lunch and dinner service, the staff can be seen eating a quiet meal before the dinner rush starts, preparing to sling charcoal grills and showcasing the unique traditional grilling method the restaurant offers to diners.
Despite operating the single restaurant, now passed on to Suk Jeong from his parents, Teasu Jeong and Jisuk Yoo, this family is part of the last vestiges of the former K-Town and at the same time part of the new generation of Korean-owned restaurants in the city.
Despite operating the single restaurant, now passed on to Suk Jeong from his parents, Teasu Jeong and Jisuk Yoo, this family is part of the last vestiges of the former K-Town and at the same time part of the new generation of Korean-owned restaurants in the city. Carrying on the legacy of one burgeoning Korean business has perhaps, albeit unintentionally, set off a chain reaction for the creation of other Korean-owned restaurants in the city.
In August, Jong Kak reopened after a sudden year-long closure to get the space, with its charcoal grills, up to fire code. Since the reopening, Jeong has taken reins again with his wife, Nari Kim, while he aims to replace the workforce he had to let go during the closure. His father, despite handing over operations over a decade ago, is still in the kitchen, cooking up and plating the 10 to 13 varieties of banchan, the traditionally complimentary Korean side dishes that accompany a meal, including a rotating banquet of potato salad, paper-thin pickled white radishes, fish cakes cut into bite-size pieces dressed with sesame and gochugaru (Korean pepper flakes), and, of course, kimchi.
“I keep telling him it’s too many dishes,” Jeong says, “but it’s become habitual after years of operations.”
The Jeong family purchased Jong Kak in 2004 when it was one of the mainstays of the neighborhood from the original owner, Geum-ham Jong, who first opened the eatery in 1989 (Jong remains the landlord). The Jeongs also operated Rainbow Music Studio above Nam Kang at the corner of Maryland Avenue and 22nd Street, a restaurant lauded by the four-time James Beard Award-winning chef Andrew Zimmern in 2013 when he called the octopus bibimbap and fish roe jjigae “authentically Baltimore.” Jong Kak and now-defunct The Crown, a late night music venue, karaoke bar, and restaurant, were included in the 2017 New York Times 36-hour Baltimore itinerary.
Many Korean business owners who operated liquor stores, carryout restaurants, and bodega-type convenience stores migrated a mile north after closing up shop, Jeong said, filling the seats while the city slept every night and taking part in one of the few charcoal grilled barbeque places in the nation.
Until the COVID-19 pandemic, Jong Kak restaurant was open seven days a week until 4 a.m. serving the Korean working community. Many Korean business owners who operated liquor stores, carryout restaurants, and bodega-type convenience stores migrated a mile north after closing up shop, Jeong said, filling the seats while the city slept every night and taking part in one of the few charcoal grilled barbeque places in the nation.
Jeong, an only child who was in middle school when he and his parents immigrated to the U.S., became the translator for his parents.
“My parents’ English isn’t great, so it was very natural in how I ended up taking over the business,” he recalls, having to step up to communicate for his parents in any business dealings not done in Korean. When he took over the business, Jeong also naturally became the type to employ nearby Korean students for part-time work, passing on the torch from his days working late-night shifts for his parents. His employment of the next generation of Korean immigrants would one day lead to the founding of Kong Pocha in 2019.
“We never closed a day,” Jeong said, “we were open for 365 days, Christmas and New Years.”
The team has more balance now, only staying open until 2 a.m. on weekends and closing at 10 p.m. on weekdays, except Mondays, when they are closed. And Jong Kak has now become a favorite among Koreans and non-Koreans alike.
“Foreigners didn’t [used to] come to this restaurant,” said Jeong. “Back then the clientele was 90% Koreans.” But by the 2010s, the menu, which had been in Korean, needed to be translated into English.
This was part of a much larger shift.
Back in 1965, Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was important for the rise in Korean immigration into Baltimore as it removed the explicit legal discrimination against Koreans, among immigrants from other countries.
It was then that Station North became the de facto K-Town, as many businesses serving Korean immigrants were concentrated around this area. The city saw the formation of several key Korean organizations, according to research by Boram Yi, associate professor at the University of Baltimore, including the first Korean Church in Maryland in 1966, the Korean Society of Greater Baltimore, and the Korean Cultural Festival, which continues to this day in Howard County.
Once one Korean business found success and word spread, others followed suit, resulting in a radius where dozens of storefronts including medical offices, travel agencies, a tea shop, and jewelry store, thrived. At the center was Hyundai Plaza (not affiliated with the car manufacturer), a 10,000-square-foot space spanning between 1910-1916 N. Charles Street that was a hub for Korean businesses and a meeting area for the community.
Among the first food-centered businesses were Far East House, the first Korean grocery store in Baltimore; Seoul Rice Cake Shop, the only shop serving fresh-made Korean rice cakes in the DMV serving the eastern seaboard; and Seoul Restaurant, one of the first Korean restaurants in the city.
“There even used to be a jjimjilbang (a Korean bathhouse),” said Jeong, who hung out in Station North in his free time. “I miss the time when there used to be more Koreans. Now Koreans avoid the area because they think it’s dangerous.”
This history has been preserved for the last eight years by a joint effort between Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center and the Central Baltimore Partnership. As part of their collaboration, the organizations host the Asia North Exhibition and Festival in May during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Artists, led by curator Phaan Howng, launched bmorektown.org last year to document the history online and to create physical markers of the culture that once thrived in the area.
Such preservation endeavors unfortunately often come around when it is too late and the culture has already moved on.
Despite the demographic shifts in the neighborhood and in Jong Kak’s clientele, Jeong says it’s important to him to keep traditional Korean items on the menu, staying as true to the original menu as possible. An order of barbecue will follow with fermented soybean stew, doenjang jjigae, and egg souffle in the traditional Korean stone pots.
The restaurant does not add cheese to the popular Korean street food tteokboki, a spicy rice cake dish often served with fish cake and a hard boiled egg. They also don’t sell corn cheese, a popular appetizer dip that mixes sweet corn, mayo, and melty cheese, on the menu. But in a sign of the shifting times, they’ll occasionally gift the item to patrons or offer it as a reward for following their Instagram account.
Also new to the dining experience since the reopening are after-dinner marshmallows for barbeque diners, who get to roast them to end the carnivorous meal on a sweet note.
“Serving non-Koreans and staying in the city has been good for the business,” Jeong admits.
Meeting the younger generation’s demand for trendier, modern Korean cuisine is Kong Pocha, separated by an alley but next door to Jong Kak.
Jong Kak served as a launchpad of sorts for Kong Pocha: founders Sobin Kang and Dae Han Wi worked part-time as servers at Jong Kak while in college and saving up money to open their own business.
After moving to the US at the age of 15, Wi helped his host family (a friend of his father’s) by working part-time at their family business, Friendly Carryout, which operated as a fast-casual Korean concept on North Avenue from 2005 to 2015. It was here the business major first learned about the ins and out of the restaurant business.
“I learned where to find ingredients, where to go shopping, and saw the workings of a kitchen,” Wi said of those formative years.
At Jong Kak, Kang and Wi, who are partners in business and life, worked the night shift until 4 a.m., often serving the new generation of tired business owners, including Steve Chu and Ephrem Abebe, who had just opened the now-famous Ekiben.
“They kept telling me their dream was to open up their own place,” Chu said, recounting his first encounters with the couple at the late night eatery after a shift at Ekiben. “‘Pocha, pocha’ every time we saw them.”
Chu, having grown up in a restaurant and finding success with Ekiben, encouraged the couple to pursue their dreams of opening a late-night eatery and offering to help where he could.
“Baltimore has been a huge success story for immigrants,” he added. He says that as one of the success stories himself: he is a second-generation American whose parents moved to the U.S. from Taiwan, and his business partner, Abebe, is a first-generation immigrant from Ethiopia.
Wi became friends with Chu during these late-night hours, the chef becoming a mentor of sorts for the couple.
“I had worked in downtown but never lived here, so Steve took me on a tour of the area, introducing me to people, showing me where the good steakhouses were,” Wi said.
Seeing the late-night crowd and delivery potential for the restaurant before the onset of the pandemic, the couple opted to start a pocha restaurant, keeping in mind the students and hospitals nearby. Pocha refers to the street food stalls prevalent across Korea, where many late-night eats happen alongside booze drinking.
They decided to name the restaurant after a nickname for Kang, who was often called “Soybean” as Americans had a hard time pronouncing her given name, Sobin. “Kong” is the romanized Korean word for bean.
Last year, Kong Pocha was named Door Dash’s top delivery spot in the Korean food category across the entire nation. It was a big year for the couple as they also expanded into a second location in Columbia, with a tighter menu as the space has a smaller footprint.
And as with many immigrant stories, families become the focal point and the connection that brings people to a new place. Wi’s younger brother Dae Hee is the culinary-school-trained chef in the family. So when the couple wanted to open their first restaurant, Dae Han reached out to his younger brother, who had quit his culinary career in Korea a few years prior and had moved to Australia.
“My brother called me and said, ‘I’m going to open Kong Pocha, so I need your experience,’” Dae Hee explained. He jumped on the opportunity to come to the US to help his older brother out.
Dae Hee created the menu for the eatery, including the famed fried chicken that’s still served to this day. He recently added buffalo wings and mala creamy udon to the Kong Pocha menu to stay on top of culinary trends.
Then, in 2021, Dae Hee was able to launch his own business, The Chicken Lab, with his wife, Hyeyeon Joen (who is coincidentally his sister-in-law’s best friend), when he was approached by the operators of Cross Street Market about a turnkey stall with minimal investment.
“It’s become a family business,” Dae Hee says of his and his older brother’s restaurants, “My wife does the graphic design for both restaurants and I do the menu concepting.”
The Chicken Lab has become a favorite in the renovated food hall, renewing the lease for another four years last year and quickly expanding via a franchise model, which started with The Chicken Lab Harbor with plans to expand into New York and Washington, D.C.
For the mainstay owners of Jong Kak, the opening of Kong Pocha felt like a betrayal of sorts of their once-deep friendship.
“We were traumatized to learn they would be opening next door,” Jeong laments. “We are not extroverted people, we are shy.”
The couple, who prefer to stay behind the scenes, worried that the competition would be bad for the family business. Jeong and his family helped sponsor the couple’s immigration process, after all, and they even vacationed together in Korea.
But the young couple had big dreams, ones they couldn’t pursue within the confines of Jong Kak. They knew the demand for more Korean food still existed in the city.
When Kang and Dae Han found out the former Korean Chinese restaurant next door was up for sale, they approached Jeong with an idea to expand the restaurant. When he declined, the couple decided to try their hand at their own business, establishing Kong Pocha.
“There’s a high population of students in the area and we saw strong takeout opportunities,” Dae Han said, realizing the business model to attract a younger population wanting comfort food. And now with the pandemic six years in the rearview, diners still flock to the area, craving the comforts of being able to have home-cooked quality meals late at night.
Many city dwellers still lament the loss of The Crown, where a row of ramen options lined the chalkboard menu below the barbeque options, the restaurant feeding artists and musicians for over a decade. After opening in 2013, The Crown shut down in August 2024. And a block northeast is B1 BBQ, a smaller and less popular spot, but one restaurant owners Aaron and Jay Cho say has stood for almost 20 years. The Chos moved from New York and took over the restaurant five years ago.
“Anytime there’s a change in ownership, the food is going to change,” Jay said. “We are not a restaurant that’s traditionally Korean anymore, it’s not meant for Koreans, after all even the difference between Koreans and Korean Americans is stark.”
Now, of the total 60,000 Koreans in Maryland, only about 2,500 Koreans live in the city, according to the 2025 census estimates.
Perhaps the three standing Korean restaurants in Station North — Jong Kak and Kong Pocha, a block away from the mural of Mr. Kim on 20th Street, and B1 BBQ a block further north on Maryland Avenue — standing on the grounds of a former K-Town are a testament to the past, present, and future of Korean immigrants who are making a lasting impression in the food scene.
“I don’t think the Korean restaurants that have success in Baltimore are because of Jong Kak,” says Jeong, but concedes, “maybe it’s because of the history of Jong Kak and K-Town.”