January 30, 2017

Meet Jenee Kim of Parks BBQ in Korea Town

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenee Kim.

Jenee, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I majored in food and sciences in college and I loved cooking growing up. I remember cooking since I was 12. I’ve always loved food and cooking so I would host dinner parties for friends and cook for my kids. After my kids and I moved to LA, I finally got the opportunity to open my own restaurant and turn my love of cooking into a business. When parks first opened, Koreatown was still fairly small and Korean food was not as well known as it is today. I loved the idea of opening a Korean BBQ restaurant that was a more approachable to people trying Korean cuisine for the first time. I’ve always stressed quality and care in preparing the food at Parks, and I am still in the kitchen almost every day, which is why I think we are fortunate enough to still be going strong to this day.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has not always been a smooth road by any means. There have been many struggles along the way, both big and small, but the most difficult struggle have been the challenges in getting our liquor license, and the mad cow disease epidemic. Korean bbq is one cuisine that almost always requires some sort of alcohol along with your meal, so you can imagine the stress that came along with not having a liquor license at Parks BBQ for the first 6 months after we opened. About a month after the license finally came through and business was finally picking up, but mad cow disease struck and nobody was eating meat for months. It was one of the hardest times I’ve had to endure; trying to keep a brand new restaurant afloat while raising my kids as a single mom. When I look back, it is incredible how we had the ability to move past that.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Parks BBQ is what I like to refer to as contemporary and modern Korean food. There is obviously the bbq aspect of it, but there are also so many other Korean dishes on the menu that I like to have available to showcase the wide variety of Korean food that doesn’t involve grilling meat. Being a bbq restaurant, we are most known for our marinated short ribs (galbi) and Kobe-style beef, that you grill in front of you at the table. I take a lot of pride in the fact that Parks BBQ was one of the first restaurants in LA to make galbi the way it is done traditionally, from the butchering to the marinating of the meat. It is a labor of love and requires the best cuts of meat and the time for quality detailing, but the end result is definitely worth it. The attention to detail and the demand for quality is probably what sets us apart from our competitors and we are extremely fortunate to have such a great following to allow us to still be loved by our guests.

What were you like growing up?
I was very outgoing, like to be with friends, and love to cook for them.

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