Every morning at 9 a.m., Song Jung-hun and his crew of the Korean BBQ food truck Cupbop — known across Utah as the “crazy food truck guys” — announce the location of their bright yellow truck on social media. By lunchtime, hundreds line up, eager to grab a cup of Korean barbecue over rice. The venue becomes more than just a food truck: it is a place of fun, full of young energy, dance and music, where crews shout “cup!” and delighted customers chant “bop!,” exchanging high fives freely.
In 2013, Song launched Cupbop with a $25,000 second-hand trailer in Salt Lake City, drawing inspiration from Korea’s speedy street-food scene popular with cash-strapped students preparing for civil service exams. The catchphrase “SHHH… JUST EAT!” captures the essence of Cupbop, which offers a hearty mix of Korean barbecue beef, pork, glass noodles and vegetables served over rice in a bowl. The name Cupbop directly translates to “bap in a cup,” where bap is the Korean word for steamed rice.
Its reputation as a fun and cool place was born out of necessity. “On the first day, we had this huge crowd and sold out all 200 portions within three or four hours. Then, from the next day, we had no customers, and we couldn’t just sit idle on the trailer that we invested all we had. So all we crews started to shout and play games on the trailer,” he said during a video interview with The Korea Times on April 17. “People started to give a look, so we decided to take it up a notch. We tuned up the music and started dancing. The truck shook up and down, and people curiously peeked inside. Soon, one person joined, then five, and then a line of 200 people formed. It was electrifying.”
Recognizing the importance of localizing its offerings, Cupbop provides sauces ranging from Level 1 (sweet) to Level 10 (“fire in the hole”), catering to American palates unfamiliar with Korean spices. “The base of Cupbop is hansik. But I hid the authenticity of hansik behind the familiar American-style sauces, which include elements of Mexican and Vietnamese sauces. Americans first eat something familiar, then they dig deeper and finally get to meet hansik,” Song said. Its bestseller is Rock Bop, served with Korean-style chicken nuggets — “Nuggets look like rocks, so I named it Rock Bop.”
Song also worked to break the stereotype that Asian restaurants offer poor customer service. “We are people with unfamiliar faces, unfamiliar accents and unfamiliar cultures. But I wanted to show our customers that we are friendly Asian friends who can high-five, put arms around, dance and take pictures together — even though we don’t speak the language very well,” he said, adding that this became “fun Cupbop culture.” Videos of the Cupbop crew playing and dancing on the truck spread on social media, and the brand grew.
Cupbop now runs some 60 brick-and-mortar stores across the United States. Internationally, it operates around 200 stores in Indonesia — where it is ranked second in the country’s snack category — and is closing in on deals in Dubai, the UAE and Canada. In the U.S., the company was estimated to be worth 140 billion won ($102 million) last year, when its store count reached 30.
The 45-year-old entrepreneur sees today’s global Korean-food craze as a great opportunity, but warns that many Korean restaurateurs in the U.S. — mostly running small, single-location stores — remain ill-prepared for it. “Back in the early days of our business, the only readily available soy sauces for bulk orders were Japanese and Chinese. We started this venture wanting people to experience authentic Korean flavors, but ironically, we had to make bulgogi with those very same non-Korean options,” he said. “Without the support of large distributors for Korean ingredients and a system for effectively branding Korean cuisine, it is a free-for-all.”
Thanks to Cupbop’s scale and to rising demand for Korean food, the company is now in a position to ask distribution giant Sysco to add Korean brands to its product codes. “For seven or eight years, Sempio has tried to add its soy sauce to Sysco’s online ordering catalog but failed. Then we told the distributor we needed Sempio’s soy sauce for our Cupbop. With our growing buying power, we successfully added the Korean soy sauce to its ordering system, followed by other items like CJ’s mandu, Ottogi’s mayonnaise, Orion’s Turtle Chips, Binggrae’s Samanco and Lotte Chilsung’s Milkis,” he said. “There’s a growing trend of people who watch Korean dramas and then seek out Korean food. This favorable trend is like a strong, favorable wind that can propel Korean food into the spotlight.”
To young talents in Korea’s food industry — where more than 55,000 fried-chicken restaurants compete fiercely inside a small home market — Song offers direct encouragement to venture out. “Before coming to the U.S., my only talent was dancing. I was a failing student and barely spoke English. Unlike my friends from wealthy families, I had to work part-time after arriving in Utah. Despite these challenges, I started my own business with a much smaller amount of money than what’s typical for Korean entrepreneurs. I’ve been running this business with the belief that failures are actually new opportunities to take a step forward,” he said. “I really want to say language is not that much of a problem. I wish many more aspiring young people would challenge and seek out bigger markets because the market is wide open waiting for us now.”
· Link: koreatimes.co.kr
