Taku will get a Seoul-ful makeover
Heong Soon Park is a man on a mission with food and drink projects in motion across the city — many involving restarts of popular spaces where the original owners decided it was time to move on or the business prospects were no longer worth the effort.
Park’s latest reboot will be Gol Mok Korean Market Bar, a new start in the Osaka, Japan-inspired E Pike Taku space forged by Seattle celebrity chef Shota Nakajima. CHS reported here in March on Nakajima’s decision to shutter the popular five-year-old karaage chicken joint, his last active concern in Seattle.
Park, meanwhile, just took on the reinvention of a space that had been home to a much deeper rooted Capitol Hill food legend. CHS reported last year on the transformation that saw Park’s Grana Padano and Parmesan-laden Cheese Room take over the longtime Melrose at Pine home of Machiavelli as its ownership decided to focus on its Edmonds location.
His other recent acquisitions include restarts in West Seattle including the Luna Park Cafe and The Shack.
Park’s first venture in Capitol Hill’s restaurant scene continues. Meet Korean BBQ has been part of Capitol Hill since its inauspicious opening in the winter of 2020 only weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns hit. CHS talked with Park here about surviving that tough start and growing Meet’s refined approach to Korean barbecue on E Pike.
Park is also the driving force behind downtown’s Chan Seattle.
The new Gol Mok Korean Market is described as “a Korean eatery specializing in bunsik – beloved Korean street food – reimagined through the nostalgic lens of Korea’s back alleys and bustling markets from the 1980s and 1990s.”
It will be the latest in what is now a long running wave of Korean-flavored food and drink projects that continues to be an important force in the neighborhood’s restaurant industry.
The project on the southwest corner of the massive Pike Motorworks development is hoped to “bring to life the warmth of childhood memories, the lively sounds of street vendors, the comfort of steaming odeng broth from a food cart, an the flutter of old paper flyers swaying in the breeze – capturing the essence of a time gone by.”
No opening date has been announced.
The Gol Mok Korean Market Bar will open soon at 706 E Pike.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍
