Rebirth, Returns, Renewal

Baroo is back and so am I!

Hello long-lost friends, I am back to my Substack after many months immersed in the baroo reopening bubble. Yes, baroo is open! You may already know that since we’ve actually been open for five months now. Since the last you heard from me here (or likely anywhere), Kwang and I have been heads-down, working flat out on opening our doors and now settling into a new life with baroo.

Now it’s the Year of the Dragon, and I’m finding a rhythm where I can find pockets of time to write, dream and expand my vision beyond my multi-page daily to-do list. There hasn’t been any time for anything else but baroo (and Shiku) and it feels good to emerge from my little hole like a mole blinded while also warmed by the sun of the outside world. The past eight months have been exhilarating, surprising, gratifying, uplifting and absolutely delightful as we worked with our wonderful team to reopen. This period has also at times been overwhelming, frustrating and exhausting, especially as Kwang and I try to find some semblance of balance with work and parenting a four-year old. Any owner of a small business knows well the rollercoaster of emotions that we’ve been strapped into and I’m very grateful to be able to say that our opening has been more successful that we had even hoped for and so the rollercoaster ride feels worth it.

How do we define success for our restaurant? I have a lot to say about this which will come in a later dispatch, but the best way I can describe it for now is how I feel when it’s the middle of service and our dining room lights are dimmed and the tables and counters are filled with guests who are laughing with each other, smiling as they take bites of our food, and the atmosphere feels lively, warm and light. People are actually enjoying themselves in this little world we created for them. I sometimes feel teary because it was a long time coming and it still feels surreal looking around the restaurant, either before service when our team are bustling around with such purpose and during service when the fruits of our work are apparent. All those flashes of impatience and feeling stalled over the years now seem so silly because it’s clear when I look out at the dining room that everything unfolded just as it should have.

So I have a lot of stories to share from our baroo world and looking forward to spending this year exploring with you the aspects of Korean food that we are sharing through our restaurants. My current plan is to send out a weekly missive on Thursdays which will either be stories from our restaurants or Korean cuisine in general, sometimes with recipes. Every other Sunday, I’ll be sending out a Sook Sunday newsletter inspired by my Sook pop-up where I’ll talk about what hospitality means to me and also share links to things that I’m loving.

I’ve also decided that for now, all my new newsletters will be free to the public. Paid subscribers will have access to the previous newsletters that were for paid subscribers only and will always have my forever gratitude for supporting this endeavour. I’m especially indebted to who signed up as paid subscribers one year ago when I launched this newsletter and have stood by me while I took a longer than anticipated break. Thank you and I’m sorry it took me so long to return.

It’s a new year. We celebrated the Lunar New Holiday last week, not only with a special dinner at baroo but after with dear friends from Hong Kong and other restaurants for their celebrations. It was a week of intense work that ended with a strong feeling of family and community. Before the Lunar New Year, I crammed cleaning out our home of junk into every spare moment at home and had my hair done. I feel renewed.

If you want to read more about our opening, please follow along. You can also read these generously written articles by Matthew Kang of Eater, Stephanie Breijo of the LA Times, and others, if you can’t wait until next Thursday. If there’s a particular topic you want to hear more about regarding our restaurant, please let me know in the comments.

Happy new year! 새해 복 많이 받으세요. Kung hei fat choi! I’m so happy to be back with you all!

xx mina