How CUPBOP Took Korean Street Food Global | Dok Kwon & Junghun Song (E165)

What does it take to build a Korean street food brand from a used food truck into a global restaurant business?

Chef JKP sits down with Dok Kwon, President & COO of CUPBOP, and Junghun Song, Co-Founder & CEO of CUPBOP.

They talk about the early food truck days, Junghun’s journey from dance to hospitality, Dok’s move from Citadel to restaurants, their Shark Tank pitch, why they walked away from the Mark Cuban deal, and how CUPBOP is scaling across the US, Indonesia, the UAE and beyond.

This is a story about Korean food, business, people, and the patience it takes to grow without losing the brand.

WHAT YOU WILL HEAR IN THIS EPISODE

• Growing up with Korean food and family traditions
• Why Junghun gave up his dream of becoming a professional dancer
• Dok’s journey from Goldman Sachs and Citadel to CUPBOP
• The story behind the first CUPBOP food truck in Utah
• How the two founders met as customer and entrepreneur
• Behind the scenes of their Shark Tank experience
• Why they walked away from a deal with Mark Cuban
• Scaling CUPBOP across the US, Indonesia, UAE and beyond

CHAPTERS

00:00 Childhood food memories and family traditions
08:30 From dance dreams to discovering hospitality
17:00 Wall Street, Citadel and the search for entrepreneurship
28:00 Building the first CUPBOP food truck in Utah
37:00 How Dok and Junghun became business partners
46:00 Shark Tank, $5 million offers and national exposure
01:16:00 Franchising, growth and building the right team
02:03:00 Leadership lessons, entrepreneurship and what’s next for CUPBOP

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Transcript

0:00

That's right. The podcast is now on YouTube. So you can watch all of the interviews at your leisure. At the same time, your contribution to the show by hitting that subscribe button makes a monumental difference to the show. As we can keep inviting the guests you love and keep having the conversations that no one else is having. The only thing that I ask is that you share the show. Welcome to the ChefJKP podcast of me, James Knight Pacheco. This is the place where you will find your solace. A place of worship for all things that combine us together. The common thread that brings us around the table. Food and memories. Wherever you are in the world, whatever you're doing, I ask that you sit back and listen and perhaps take away a few morsels of advice. There will be laughter, we're gonna get serious. Above all, lessons for life. You're listening to the Chef JKP podcast, and this is what you can expect on today's show. Cup Pop just naturally is a super energetic brand. Right. So we said we gotta show what Cupop is all about. Jung started dancing background for Don't count down on a junk thing. Choreographed uh choreographed that. Ah! So Jung, it was you. Went the show. We expelled our business. We pitch them, right? Yes. After a couple of minutes, but they're actually pitching us. I think one of the sharks, Robert, he actually threw out the biggest number he's ever thrown out. He offered five million dollars. What advice would you give to your 16-year-old self? Stay very, very curious. Stop practicing headspin anymore. I spent so much time with a head spin. Good advice. He actually texted me first. I denied him. I told him. Hello my friends, and a very warm welcome back to the Chef JKP podcast. Can you believe we are in episode 11 already? Where has the time flown by? It feels like so much has happened, right? And well, anyways, on with the show. Before we dive in, if you haven't already, please do not forget to hit that all-important subscribe button on YouTube or press follow wherever you get your podcasts. As it helps us to grow the show and to keep on bringing you the most fascinating conversations with the most inspirational guests. That's all we will ever ask. Well, today's guests have an amazing entrepreneurial story. They made their name when they appeared on the US hit version of Shark Tank. The show where you make a pitch to these famous investors. And by the way, the pitch was one of the most famous in the history of the show. Jung and Doc are the founders of the famous Cut Bob, a brand that started as a humble food truck and grew into a global Korean street food phenomenon. And that's the beauty of hospitality. Sometimes the smallest ideas turn into the biggest success stories. Today we're going to talk about street food, entrepreneurship, and how passion and perseverance can turn a simple concept into something extraordinary. Listen out for a story about how they met. Time to rock and roll. Just before we begin, here is a small message from this week's guest. Hey, my name is Doc. My name is John. I'm the CEO of Cup Up. I am founder of the Cup Pop and Sexy Happers. If you like the podcast, make sure to share, follow, follow, share, and subscribe. Gents, a very warm welcome to the show. Now, as we ask every single guest, can you tell me your first or favorite childhood food memory? Doc, we're gonna start with you first. Got it. I think my favorite childhood food memory is my mom used to make essentially like crackers at home back in the day with like flour, and then she'd bake it and she'd put sugar on it, and it was like a treat for us, and it would be like, I don't know, once every few months, and every time she would make that, we were just so happy. And so that's a very, very fond memory that I have. Do you remember the type of like flavor that cracker would have? It it was warm and it had it was coated obviously with sugar. Um, like the cracker itself, I don't think had a ton of flavor, like thinking back, but obviously it's got sugar on it. When you're a kid, you love it. So I like I can't describe it. I I could 100% imagine exactly what it tastes like. You still remember it in your head. Um but yeah, she used to always make it. She had this like big kind of red bowl at home that she would like, you know, get the dough and like make the flowers. And yeah, it's such a good memory that I have to this day. And uh, have you managed to take the recipe or no? No, you know, that's a great idea. Actually, I need to ask my mom to make it again. Yeah, no, I I spent a lot of time with my parents, and so that's a great idea. I'm gonna have her actually make it again. And Junk, for you, what's your favorite food memory? My favorite food memory is I don't know you guys know this one. It's called Tokbuki, it's a Korean traditional rice cake, it's like the street food. Because I have a reason why it's special for this because I was a slaker, I don't like study. Oh, I have a problem in my class all the time, but when I actually doing well, my mom took me that little tiny dogbookie restaurants and buy those dogbookie for me. So it's not the taste, it's it's all about the memories, right? The experience. And whenever I go to Korea, I go to the same restaurants. Ah, okay. Every single time because of memory. And nowadays, whenever I took my family, because I have five kids, I take those kiddos at restaurants. And do they like to pokey? They love to poke. Yeah, you're not creative if you don't like dump pokey. If you don't like it, you're North Koreans, man. They also like it. So so, but look, tell me, gents. When I want to understand also during your family days, you know, what are the types of food that you would have around the table? Yeah. I think, yeah, so family days. Every Sunday we used to get together, not just our family, but the extended family. Right. We would all of us would go to uh our grandparents' house every Sunday, you know, the uncles, aunts, and we'd have a big meal growing up. And it was traditional Korean food. Obviously, you know, you have your rice, you always have a soup, um, and you have a couple of main dishes, generally meat dishes, right? And then you have a ton of panchans or side dishes. Um, and one of my favorite uh side dish was the um like a meat pancake that my mom used to always make. Um, and every time she cooked that, I was on it. What was in that meat pancake? So it's it's mm- So you uh grind meat, onions, um uh a little bit of um garlic in there, and then you would put uh egg on it and just put it on a pan with a little bit of oil and cookies, and you put and you put a little bit of salt to um make it the seasoning. Um it is just it is so good. And Jung, for you, what are the sort of when you were a child or a teenager growing up, types of food on the family table? It's a little weird menu, but my mom Monday through Sunday, she's making all the meals. Okay, but except Saturday mornings, my dad making one food. What's the food? It was spaghetti. Spaghetti, spaghetti, like Italian spaghetti. He actually bumped big giant pot. Wow, all over the pot. He actually makes the spaghetti every Saturday. He actually made for me and my sisters for lunch or dinner or just like whole day after eat it. Bang, boogie. Back in the beginning from yeah, spaghetti is bougie. I like it. Wow. So like we like it a little bit, but you know, after a couple years anymore, he only can make the spaghetti every Saturday. That was uh special memories because you know I never seen my dad's cooking right on the Saturday mornings. You wake up with Ollie, he making a bunch of a big giant pie, he makes a full of the spaghetti. Okay, so I have a business proposal for you. Maybe you should make cageti, you know, after your dad, and then you put it put it in there later on. But Jen, so then you know, you had some you had some great memories. Food was always obviously there. Um, but can I ask educational-wise, yeah, was food always something that you wanted to go through, or or which path did you take? So, doc, for you, what was your educational path? Yeah, food was yeah, I never thought I was gonna get involved in with with restaurants in the in the food world, I don't think. Um so I spent most of my career actually in finance. So after college, moved to New York, um, went into an investment bank. So spent three years, close to three years at Goldman Sachs. But was that through was that through uh pressure from the family, or you decided to do it yourself? No, it was it was actually it it's you know, long story short, um, while I was in high school, um my dad's business uh went belly up um during the Asian financial crisis, all of that. And so, you know, we kind of my brother and I um we f we felt something. We knew something wasn't right. And we were old enough where we kind of, you know, got got what the situation was. And so going through college, my goal was okay, I need to now it's our turn to do something. Um and uh the singular really goal was how do I make as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time. I literally Googled that, and Google told me you gotta go to a hedge fund in New York. And if you you know, if you go to a hedge fund in New York, you can make a lot of money. And so I set that goal and uh yeah, that's what I did. Went to yeah, went to New York, spent a few years at an investment bank, and then ended up uh going to a big hedge fund called Citadel, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, and spent close to five years there as an investor. Um, yeah, ran a big uh equity investment portfolio, about $500 million. Just a small amount. Yeah, and did that for yeah, for a number of years. And yeah, food was it was never I knew, I mean, I in instinctively knew that Korean food had just exponential um growth potential. And that was just through my experience of bringing my friends over to my house when my when my parents were in town during the summer and they would grow up just loving Korean food. And I always thought, wow, there's a huge market for that. Um and it was really after a few years, you know, spending all the time in New York on Wall Street where you know I was itching to try something new. I think I always had some, you know, uh an urge for entrepreneurship, didn't know what it was. Um and yeah, fate led me to We'll get to that. Yeah, we'll get to that. And June, for you, what was your educational path? My whole life was I was a crazy kid. I already told you. My only one goal was to be a number one b-boy dancer in Korea. Yep. I was pretty good at freaking B-boy in Korea. That was my whole middle school, high school, universities. I didn't study at all. I don't like it, I didn't like it, I hate it. But dance has only one passion about my goal. So you were very autistic, right? Right, that was that was me, and that was my job too. But at the same time, I didn't have any background for the chef or experience, I didn't even get any like certificate or anything, but always during the younger time and from now, I'm really good. Whenever I spend time with my favorite people, I want to make food and feed them. Okay, so whenever I see if they like my food, I ask Importage because did you like it? Why? Like that was a little my favorite thing to do. So, because it's quite interesting because that's kind of uh it's it's people pleasing in a way, but doing it through an act of love, which is you know, food, food, right? So it's a really nice way to understand that. So your friends obviously did they love your food? Did they like it? Did you make mistakes? Actually, they really like whenever I cook them. So I thought I can be a good chef, but I never studied. I actually learned from the streetways. Like my style is whenever I open the refrigerators, if I have some ingredients inside over there, I can create my own. Right. So I don't have to buy anything whenever I see the refrigerator, if something left over vegetable and sauce, I'm making my own one. Okay. And actually, people love that menu whenever I make it. So again, you were very creative, not just dance-wise, but also with food, which is super cool. But how long did you stay in in Korea for before you made the big move to the US? So I was like, okay, about six, seven years, I was a focusing dance, and that was the only goal I have in my life. But one day he's laughing, he knows the story. I tried to make a little record, right? And my favorite manager actually came to me after exercise dance. He came to me, you know, I actually asked a bunch of a question, how can I be the professioners? Make a you know, make a little album in Korea. Okay. And one day he actually told me, he looked at me directly, John. You know how much I love you. I said, Oh yeah, because I got so much respect. But let me tell you one thing. He said, I think you can be really popular, but not with this way. Right. I think if you were to more like comedians way, you'd be better. Yeah, shock. Wow, how to cry after when I heard from my favorite people. Yeah. That day I actually dropped my whole career. Really? That day, because I knew. So, you know, look at my face. I'm not really like handsome, handsome face. But but you know, I had a dream. If I do really good for the dance, maybe I can be succeeded. Sure. But I already knew. I fight with myself, but the that day he actually dropped the bomb, right? I recognized, okay, this is not my way. Pain painful though. So I actually take it for the painful, but I recognize my real futures. Okay. Okay, what should I do? So those six, seven years dance career. I dropped it that night. Cry a lot. That was like the first time ever got a big pain in my life. How old were you? That was 18. Right. Hurt. Because, you know, that's the only goal I focusing on. Didn't care about the study or anything. But when he dropped that one sentence, hurt so much. Yeah, the comedian part there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm glad we're easy right now. Because of his, you know, telling me the weird his opinions, and I take it, I love it. Because, you know, I didn't sleep at the night, because I practice all the time. I like eight hours every single day, I exercise, practice my career for the dance. Couldn't sleep. That's why I actually found a job at the Korean bar. I was a waiter's and also cooking in the back with the kitchen. Same. So you were doing waiting tables? It wasn't like the serving to the customer. Uh-huh. Okay. And also a little bit of cooking. Cooking in the back, in the kitchens. Which one did you like more? I like the waiter more. That's how I start, because I have a no background about the cooking. By slowly, slowly starting to learn from our chef at that restaurant. And I actually make it and serving to the customer, and they like it. So whenever I see those customers enjoy my food, something is like, whoa, what is it? Something is cooking. Yes, what is it? Emotionally. What is it? Why do they like food? And I really enjoy it. That's how it starts. Okay. Those, you know, cooking industry, I joined it a little bit. So then I want to understand how both of you came to be. Because it's very interesting that you have a completely separate background. You have a completely separate background. So where did you meet? Actually, when Jung first started the Cup Bop food truck, I met him as a customer. So and this was in Utah, right? I grew up in Utah as well. Um, and one day I saw a bright yellow food truck that said Korean barbecue in a cup. Um, and I thought, Korean food. What in Utah? That's crazy. Um, and I tried it and I fell in love with it. Instantly I knew, oh, this concept is going to places. Oh, this is this is really good. Um, but obviously, you know, I had kind of the finance career that I was chasing in. So there was about a period of three months that we overlapped um while John was running the food truck. Um, and the time I stayed in Utah before moving to New York. And in that time, every week the food truck would come um on Thursdays, and I used to bring my friends to the food truck and say, Hey, this is new food truck, it's amazing. And everybody loved it. And I was just so proud. Like, you know, you know, Koreans are very patriotic, they they're proud. This is another funny story I want to share, Chef. My truck getting super popular. Right. You got like 300 people lined up in front of my truck. 300 people. If you You see 300 people waiting in front of my truck, you want to run away. Yeah. Right? But because we from Utah, a lot of American people, 99.9% of our customer is Americans. Okay. They're white. He's the only one Asian. Standing up stopping. What are you doing? This is not for you. These crazy Americans. What have you done? This is not for you. This is all the mechanism. What are you doing? He comes every week. Really? Bring the different fans, different employees. Yeah. So I thought, well, this guy's got something going on over there. But can I ask, how did you start the concept on your own first? Okay. Because I actually try a little business experience when I was working with the waitress. And I have a I spent time with the chef, and Londo's experience, I got something inside here, right? So I make a good money because I was a good waiter. I just, hey, I give me your hand. I'm gonna lead your palm line, the digital line, yeah. I'm gonna show some little move. I got a good, I did a little DJ, I make a good money, yeah. Nice, huh? Right, right. But whenever I make the money, I collecting that money, I don't spend, I don't waste any monies, and I collecting and buying the recipe. I don't have any plan to open, okay. I want to be the real chef, I want to make my own restaurant. I don't have any plan that time, but whenever I make the money, I bought expensive, famous, popular recipe from the each different chef. That was my I don't know why. I just bought the recipe, so I got a little bit passion in my book. One day I actually watching documentary that was a story about the cop-up in Korea. They have a special area, one city have a street, hop-up street. The reason why that cities, so many academies. Before you go to university, people spend time and took a lot of class. So people have no money because they don't have any job yet. They have to go to each class after 40 minutes. They have to move it to the different class. That's the area we call the Nuryangjin. That's a Nuryangjin city. That's about documentary about Nuryangjin kutbab. I saw that documentaries like this is not fair because you know kutbab is from the street food, people paying two or three dollars, grab and go, because they need to go to a different class. Is that the right way? Because of this getting super popular, but you know, restaurant owners complain because they pay a tax, they build up the restaurant, but street food coming out one of the street and people just enjoy their cupboard so much because cheap and you know super fast. And I saw that documentary, oh, what if I bring this concept to the United States? Because that time in Utah have only three Korean restaurants. Yeah, not very many, yeah. There were only three Korean restaurants that time and zero food trucks concept for the Koreans. So I thought, oh, it might be interesting if I bring those concepts, cut-up concept, open up the food truck because I don't have a lot of money that time. So I bought the like use the trailers. Used one year old trailer, I bought it from some little old lady. And I using that cup-up menu in that trailer. That's how I started. How big was the menu when you first started? Only three. That's it. Chicken, beef, pork. That's it. And what was in that first cup bottle? So you have you had the proteins, what else was in it? So 2400 paper cups, bottom apple rice, yep, cabbage mix on the top, 100% sweet potato on the side, three different protein, chicken beef, pork. Okay, and the sweet potato is like mashed potato, fried sweet potato. How is how is it? It's called the chapche. Right. It's uh whatever the cream. Like the glass noodles, yeah. Okay, okay, right. So right, right, right, right, right. Made by 100% sweet potato starch. Craziness. Oh, and then uh I'm uh I'm assuming uh did you have different sources or it was just one source for all proteins? I create five different sauces. But I actually put in some little special ingredients on top because Korean love. This is a spicy chili sauce. Oh yes. And twenjang, that's uh like bean paste. That's the top two most famous Korean sauce, but I didn't actually put it on top. I make five different sauces, all the ingredients I use or the Americans' favorite ingredients I actually use. For the sauce, yeah. That's the big difference secret. Yeah. Because really localized it. I love the authentic, I love the Korean food, but I actually serving this Korean food to American people, right? And it was at the time, back then, Korean food wasn't big at all. Right. Like even, I mean, 10 years ago. I mean, it was nobody knew anything about Korean food 10 years ago. And you know, with junk starting in Utah, um, he got his sauces that everybody loved and it just took off. And where was the spot that you parked? The reason why I have a mentor. He's a big giant dude. But whenever he actually met the little kids, he kneeled down and he hugged them. I saw them, like, why are you doing this? And he actually told me something, I want to see their eyes at the same height so I can hug them 100%. That was actually into my mindset, okay. If I serving Korean barbecue in the United States, I want to understand. So that's why, even though I like the chili paste and tenjang, it's like pin paste, I want to be using it, but those guys have no idea about those ingredients. And let me using your favorite ingredients so I can look at your eyes at the same directions. I want to hug you guys. So I barely like putting my knees, okay. Why do you guys like it? Let me make it for you. It's very smart. That was how I started very smart. So, Doc, after you introduced your gang and your crew to Cutbook, and you know, John was like, Hey, what who are you? What are you doing here? When when did you sort of make the the connection and when did you make the decision to ask him to be your business partner? That was years and years after. I think it was seven years after because I went to New York and spent probably six and a half years. And uh, you know, at that time I started kind of just itching for something really exciting. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I wanted to grow something. Um, and it was very random. Um, literally one night, Cup Bob just popped into my head, and I was like, oh, how's that concept doing? You know, but were you in touch in those six, seven years? Or I mean a few Facebook messages, okay, like in between, not a ton, once a year, maybe. Happy birthday? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, and uh I thought, and it was pretty clear, you know, you know, me being an investor and looking at the landscape at the time, and still to this day, obviously, the penetration of Asian cuisine in especially quick casual or quick service is very low. I mean, there's Panda Express globally, and there's nobody else in QSR. That's it. Like in the whole Asian category, which is mind-boggling. And I looked at the whole, you know, macro picture and the competitive landscape and the fact that I love the brand, I thought, we could take this national. It's it's such a brilliant brand. Um I think it has what it takes to go national. And so yeah, I just messaged him and said, hey, let's talk. And you know, after you know, a few, I think a few months of conversations, um it it became very clear that I was just so excited about it. And it wasn't even it was really the fact that I remember this distinct conversation, right? And a lot of people thought actually I was crazy leaving Citadel to join a local brand that started as a food truck, and because we weren't big back then. Um but you had the vision, I had the vision, and uh you know, talking with Jung, this is this is literally the sentence that sold me completely. Jung said, Hey, Doc, there are a lot of successful hedge fund managers in New York, but no one has been able to create a national brand out of Korean food ever. We could be the first ones to do it. And when I heard that, it was over. I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. Yeah, I was like, okay, we're doing this. Cool. But when he actually texted me first, I denied him. Uh huh. Okay. He told me his older background and everything. I told him, hey, stay in the air conditions, man. This little trailer doesn't have an air conditioner either. You don't want to come this one to stay there. Yeah, he's just showing his passion and enthusiasm. Wow. Okay, hey, and I actually met him. I talked one hour, I just falling in love. So I actually convinced him. I can't convince with the monies. That time, you know, I just run in a couple of trucks and couple stores, but when I actually saw him, I talked to him, and you see his eyes, he bling bling bling. Yeah, okay. I need to convince these guys. Okay, so I actually told that story. Hey, join with me. Let's take this cop up to the moon, man. And what year was that roughly? That was 2019. 2019. Okay. Before COVID. Yeah. But look, can I ask during COVID, did did the business take off even further? Were you doing delivery and all that sort of stuff? Yeah, yeah. Initially we got hit. Um, and uh with everybody else, we thought we were gonna die. Sure. Um, but with delivery, uh, we ended up growing through COVID. And also in Utah or nationally? Uh at the time we started going to the other states. Um, we built our first store in Colorado during COVID. Right, right. And Indonesia, a couple of stores. We had oh, cool. Okay, Indonesia. Right. I think. Yeah, we had five. We had five at that time. Yeah. Five stores in Indonesia at that time. Um and so yeah, we we doubled down and and and we saw very quickly that our concept was ideal for delivery. It was in the right price range, the food traveled very well, um, it was convenient, and we saw our our our numbers going up, and and it was still kind of not quite at the tail end where people are still very nervous to open restaurants. And so a lot of you know great deals came out on on the real estate side, and we said we're gonna double down. Right. Let's do this. And so we we grew a lot through COVID. So you really obviously you you grew really well. When did you make the decision to actually or not not make the decision, but when did you start talking about pitching and going on Shark Tank? Yeah, it was it was actually very random. So, you know, me with my previous background as an investor, you know, one question I used to always ask um management used to be, hey, what keeps you up at night? What's that one thing that keeps you up at night when you run your business? And if I were to ask myself that question at the time, my answer would have been my nightmare would be if somebody copies our concept, goes out, somebody's got a finance background, they goes, they go out and raise $15 million, they build a few hundred stores very quickly, and all of a sudden they get cemented as the first mover in Korean QSR space. And that was kind of the nightmare that kept me up at night. And I talked to Jung about it. I said, Jung, this is my biggest worry. Because we had been we didn't take any capital. Um, to this day, we're self-funded, we've never taken an investment. Um, and so I said, This keeps me up at night. We need to find a way to get national exposure. And Jung said, Oh, that's easy. I was like, What do you mean it's easy? He's like, Well, just go on Shark Tank. I don't and I thought about it for two seconds and thought, you know what? That's actually a really good idea. How do we even get on there? And we Googled it right there, and there was this literally a three-question like application, your first one. That's it, that's it. And we're like, is this even the real one? Like, they know nothing about our business with these three questions, but it was on the official website, so we thought, okay, it's the right one, so we'll send it in. And I think a couple months later, we got a call from them. Um, which showed YouTube 99 when you fill out those, you know, the applications, they don't actually get a response from the Shark Tank people. Okay. So that the call was it from the exec producers? Yeah, it was from the producers, yeah. Okay, yeah, because I think they have like uh because I mean, because so many people want to get on the exposure. So I mean they have big auditions, but then they also have you know uh a person dedicated, you know, on just going through application and trying to find something interesting. Um, and we were very lucky, yeah. We just got a voicemail. I remember we didn't even answer because we thought it was spam, and it was it was voicemail from Shark Tank, and we thought crazy, yeah, still have them. No way, and we thought oh my goodness, is this real? And it's a long process after that. You see that? So it's here, right? That was my decision. Okay, so look, you had the initial voicemail, then there was all the processes, yeah. So, first of all, when did you get the final call to say you are going to be featured? Or you're gonna or you're gonna pitch? It was a few months, a few months for sure. I mean, you start with you get that call, you talk to them, they have you actually now fill out a real application that is you know much longer. And does it have to have all your finances, or do you have to verbally say that on the show? Yeah, yeah, no, no, you have the you you you you you give that, but the shark don't know that, right? They know nothing about it, but the producers do. And so initial application, when you get in touch with them, that one's a very lengthy, and you tell your story, your like your childhood, what this business is about, how it came about, your vision, you know, and your finance. It's a long application. You do that, and then if you make it to the next round, and then you go into the video round where you make like a two-minute, like really interesting video, and if you pass that, then you get to talk to one of the producers, and if you pass that, like an executive producer, and then yeah, it's a long process, okay, and then you get to pitch to the darks. So tell me then, they said to you both guys, fantastic. You're gonna be on the show and you're going to pitch. At which point were you like, okay, we need to do some type of crazy dance to get their uh you know their attention straight away? Because when you watch the pitch, and just on YouTube alone, it's three million views, just on YouTube, right? Uh, you make an impression the minute you walk through those doors, you capture them, they're smiling straight away. Yeah, I want to understand the process behind that. Who was thinking about the dances and the presentation and all of that kind of thing? I think it was we just knew immediately that's something that we had to do. So when we knew we were gonna air, we're like, okay, we got we gotta make the pit, we have one shot at this first impressions, everything. And plus, Cup Pop just naturally is a super energetic brand, right? And so we said we gotta show what Cup Pop is all about, and we sit and Jung started, you know, he his dancing background being useful. Choreograph uh choreograph that so join, it was you, yes, right. It was me, yes, yeah, but it's it's iconic, no. I I hate the dance book, you know. I need the paintation from the show, right? We're just laughing because I was like, what are we even doing? Is this even right? Like, you know, it's I think it's genius, I think it was brilliant. Yeah, no, we could we definitely put out a lot of energy, and I they absolutely felt the energy just right from the get-go. Um, and you asked for a million US dollars in equity as well, right? So that was quite a big deal because yeah, I think we asked for a million for three percent. Yeah, and I and the thing is you don't expect that type of deal from from Cup Bob. It maybe they expected it from like some I don't know, oil gas, yeah, yeah, yeah. But little you know Korean barbecue, yeah, they had no clue. Yeah, right. They got shower when they heard the numbers, yeah. We're asking for it. But you know, yeah, and and and that's the part kind of I took over as far as Joan do the you know, the choreograph, all of that. You know, me, you know, with my previous background, I was I'm very used to sitting on the other side of that. Right. And so I had a I had a good idea about what they're gonna ask, things they want to hear, what they're looking for in a business, and uh you know the valuation itself as well. Um, and so I I kind of took on that part and yeah, it worked out. It was really fun, actually. Yeah, you're in there for a long time. How how long was that? Because there was fit on TV it features for 15 minutes. Oh, yeah, but it's edited. So, how long were you actually there for? More than one hour and 30 minutes. Yeah, about an hour and a half. What in with the sharks? With the sharks. No, it is long, it is it's real. They you go in, they know nothing about you, nothing about your business, and they will ask just about any question they could think of because they're really trying to put their money in. Sure, sure. And these things it's very serious, really. They actually put in their own money, right? And so it's it's it can really blow up as well, and it could be amazing opportunities for these sharks, and so it it's it's it's long, you're in there for a long time. Um, I didn't expect it to be that long. Um, I think the producers told us it's gonna be typically at least an hour or so, but it ended up but it's a lot of um physical and mental energy, yeah. No, yeah, that sort of thing. Because not only are you having to you know present and pitch, you've got the sharks, five of them asking you different types of questions. On top of that, something that you may not be used to are the cameras and the lights and the pressure and all of that together. Oh, yeah, so that's so funny. As soon as you're done and you get off the stage, you meet with like uh a psychologist or psychiatrist, like a therapist right after, like right after, and they said, Hey, like I know Are you guys okay? Are you guys okay? I know it can be super overwhelming, and they go that's quite cool, I think. Yeah, they go through that with you. Yeah, you meet with a therapist right after. That's the first thing you do as soon as you get off stage. Yeah, but we actually enjoyed every single minute. It was really fun. I had a blast, but I think that's the key. Yeah, and it and it comes across that you both really had a fantastic time. Um, so at the time, if I remember correctly, you had roughly 200 uh uh vans, I think, right? And you because you wanted to scale as much as possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so in the end, I mean, was there a particular sharp? That you both wanted, or or were you just going all in? Oh, Mark. We knew we wanted Mark from the get. I mean, he's the big dog, obviously. Right. You know. Um, and so I think before going on the show, we thought, yeah, Mark is probably Mark is the guy we want, and we were going for Mark specifically. Well, amazing blessing moment was, you know, as a cup-up owner, we actually went the show, we present, expelled our business. We pitch them, right? Yes. After a couple minutes, they actually see us, heard our background, and uh about our brand story. Those five sharks pitch us. Wow. Why you guys need to work with me? Yeah, actually, they're actually pitching us. I think our the one of the sharks, Robert, he actually threw out the biggest number he's ever thrown out as far as like amount of money he he wanted to invest in. He wanted to, I think he offered five million dollars for it was too much equity or something. Yeah, it was like 30 or something, but five million dollars, he's never ever offered anybody five million dollars. Um, you must have really impressed all of them, actually. Oh, they were it was intense because they have they all big egos, as you can imagine, and it gets very intense. And literally, out of the 90 minutes, half the time they're just fighting with each other. Brilliant, excellent, they fight with each other. So it's 30 minutes sitting there, and what is going on? Mark is like you don't know anything, it's like that was stupid. Like, how can you even say that? Like, they get intense. Yeah, it was it wasn't crazy, it was fun, it was fun. But look, obviously, you guys got the investment, it was extremely successful. On top of that, you had now national exposure on a huge platform, yes, right? So that must have massively helped the brand for sure. Just you know, I I I'd say given we're a restaurant, um, you don't see the immediate financial benefit that like an e-commerce, you know, uh a company would get, right? Where everybody's just going to your website and ordering. Because, you know, I think we had as far as store count, I think we had 20-something stores, yeah. 20 and odd stores. And because we were all concentrated in Utah, right, at the time, and we're physically bound by the geographical locations we're in, you don't immediately see a big sales boost, but you get a ton of exposure, and people recognize the brand. Um, and and from that perspective, it it was it was an unbelievable. We got a couple thousand email to one of the franchise. Yeah, yeah. It was a crazy right, crazy, and I'm sure a lot of people were wanting to say, listen, sponsorship deals work with us, do yeah, yeah, yeah, all of that collab. Collaborations, yeah, invite to the TV show, yeah. Oh, come to the Australia. Yeah, yeah, sure. You know, but you know, congratulations, really. But can I ask you then, you know, now globally, where does the brand stand? Yeah, we are before that. Yes. In the show, we signed the contract with the Mark Cubans, right? But we didn't sign the deal after the show. Yeah. What why would why not? And it's just as simple as all you agree on when you're on stage is price. And after the show, when it's an actual transaction, there are a lot of little details about the deal. First write a refusal on this, that, that, that's a good thing. So the crew very, very thorough. And I think us at the time, we were a little bit bigger in size than a typical Shark Tank contestant. And the the essentially the Shark Tank template that Mark had, because he's so busy, he can't he can't go through each country. He's like, Okay, this is my Shark Tank template. You either take it or you leave it. And it didn't quite fit us because he was, you know, he was gonna be a five percent investor, but in there, I mean, you give first rights to a lot of different things. I was like, we can't, we can't take this, you know. Um, and so we ultimately ended up walking away. Um, huge respect and shout out to Mark, though. I mean, you know, during the process, we'd have emails going back and forth, and every time I would email him, he'd get back to you within 30 minutes, like this, like clockwork. Right, okay. I mean, that guy is a machine, he's a beast. That's why he's where he is, literally. And I'm like, we're just a sharp tank contestant. How is he? And it's not like short yes or no questions, he will write things out and put his thought thoughts into his emails. Um, and so great experience. Ultimately, um, so we ended up walking away from the deal, and yeah, we're still we have still yet to take an investment as a company. But that's great, yeah. You know, that's that's it's hard to do it. I'm sure it's you know, uh it's grueling, grueling. Um, but yeah, today as of today, we're 70 locations in the US. Um, you know, obviously, you know, uh in in the UAE Dubai, we have our third location opening in in in um JBR tomorrow. Um, we have a lot of we have the most locations actually in Indonesia. We have over 200. I think we're around 240 or so. Every week we have to talk, we're losing the count anymore. Yeah, this guy, my partner in Indonesia, they're opening like a couple stores in a couple of weeks. Yeah, they've been on a tear. Um, so we have a lot of locations in Indonesia. Um, we're across nine states now, no, in ten states now in the US and growing. And uh yeah, we'll be also going to Canada here pretty soon. Because, like last couple, I think about six months ago, we start finally we actually doing the franchise in the United States. So we are looking for the partnerships, people like three to five units. Is anyone interested? We're interviewing and another interviewing because we learn from the Shark Tank. Sure, sure, of course, yeah, of course, yeah. If we really like those guys, and we give you some other chance to open the cup-up store, minimum three, maximum five. Okay, so we waited a long time. I mean, there's a lot of temptation, right? After Shark Tank, you get flooded with franchise inquiries, and you know, it was tempting, but we knew we weren't ready. I mean, US is such a big country geographically that if you don't have your supply chain down, if you don't have all the ducks in a row and you start selling franchises, you're done. I mean, you're gonna get I mean, number one, franchisees are gonna invest all this money and get crushed, and the brand gets crushed ultimately. And we said, no, we're not ready, we're not doing it until we feel that we're really ready. And so we spent the last few years getting all of that ready. And this year, uh last year, we thought, okay, I think, you know, all of these things we've been getting ready for. Um, and so yeah, we we still it we haven't really advertised. It's been so people actually don't know we're franchising. It's been all these, you know, people who love the brand reaching out to us, hey, can we franchise? Can we franchise at an opportunity? And we started those conversations um uh in kind of March, April of last year, and that's started to really develop. But isn't it amazing though, if you take a little sort of step back? Because obviously at the moment you are opening stores left, right, and center, trying to, you know, obviously running the business, so on and so forth. But if you take a really big step back, what's amazing is that especially over the past, I would say, three years, uh anything to do with K-pop or Korea has really exploded on the scene. But you guys, what you've actually done is put the most beautiful street food on the map globally from Korea, right? So that's quite a massive achievement, wouldn't you say? Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's it's I mean, it's so cool cool to come to Dubai and see a cup-up store. It just gets me just so excited. It's so cool to visit Indonesia and drive down the streets of Jakarta and seeing our brand everywhere. It it is such a cool feeling. Um, and and that's that's what gets us going, right? I mean, business is so hard. It's so, I mean, food especially, it's a tough business and relentless tough business to scale too, and to trying to try and do it without outside capital is also very tough. And so, you know, but that's what gives us the conviction and the energy to keep going, seeing these, right? And going into a new market, seeing the reception, you know, and becoming somebody's favorite brand. And you know, that's that's how you build conviction as a as a founder, and you just have that energy to go. Even today, we actually came to a pop-up store in Dubai and JBR. When I was a little like two, three years old kids came from came with his her mom and dad sitting over there eating chop chat noodles with some little sauce and chickens. It's like it took 22 hours from Utah to here. Same food, those little tiny lady eating my noodles with their parents. Oh, that's what keeps you going. It's that's the I mean, that's the difference, I think, between investors and all of us. You can't even control her, you know, fork or the chapstick. Drop glass noodles and grab it in the little hand and put in her mouth. But what an amazing emotional and physical connection. That's really what it is, right? Because so many times you want to give up when you're running business and it's so hard, and all the forces are always trying trying to shut you down, your competition, the markets, this, that. And it's it's always these subtle confirmations that you get every day that gives you that conviction. I mean, today I was, you know, we were at JBR at the store filming stuff, and we had customers, and you know, I saw uh a couple there, they came in and the guy just finished his food like this, just finished the bowl really quick. So I went over there and said, Hey, how was the food? Is it your first time at Cup Up? And he said, No, I was here yesterday, I'm here today, I'm probably coming back tomorrow. I heard that. I mean, that's everything. That's what it's about. And that's what I yes, this is why we do this. This is why we do this. Because in in Utah, in US, we're closing the lead on top of the the paper pole, we shake it, yes, yeah, mixing the sauce race, they shake it, and same thing. That was a sitting in the JBR today. People just automatically closing their JK and eating crazily. I say, like, okay, you need the chew, don't drink it. Okay, and don't eat the cup, only for the food. That was a little tiny experience, was it? Like, made me like good supposed. This season of the Chef JKP podcast is brought to you by Valrona, the French chocolate house that's been inspiring chefs and creators for over a century. Valrona isn't just chocolate, it's perfectly crafted from bean to curvature. Every flavour, aroma and texture is shaped with precision, passion and purpose. Whether you're baking, tasting, or simply indulging, Valrona's approach is simple. Extraordinary ingredients treated with extraordinary care. Valrona elevates every experience. For more information, head over to Valrona.com forward slash Valrona Middle East Africa and India. Now back to the episode. But look, guys, I think what's also super cool is that as you said, it's the your third opening in the UAE. Uh Dubai itself is a very, as you know, competitive market. Absolutely. But at the same time, your brand, you know, you're you're not you're not a local brand from the UAE, you're you're you're an outsider brand. But it's been welcomed extremely well. Uh, it's extremely popular. Uh people love the flavors, you know, so it's a really cool thing. We're very we're very grateful. We're very, I mean, Dubai is such a global hotspot. Everybody wants to come to Dubai. It's it's just the coolest place right now, right? And so to have to be able to have the opportunity to come to UAE and work with such an amazing partner. I mean, the partner we work with, you know, Ramal, um, hospitality, part of the Alpha Heem group, I mean, an unbelievable team. Unbelievable team in every aspect. Um, Eli, who leads um um Ramal, just he is he's one of a kind. His leadership, uh, how he cares for his people. Um, and that was really the biggest reason why we came to the UAE, because our our focus naturally is gonna be in the US. There's just so much to go after domestically, where we know the effort it takes to go international, because we've done it in Indonesia, and it is just so much time because you know, you gotta resource the ingredients all again in a completely different country, a lot of travel, this and that. And so we usually wouldn't take international opportunities, but it was when you know Eli visited us in Utah and we met with him. Eli actually contacting us for like three years. Yeah, he said he he contacted us for three years. We completely ignored for three years. And we were ignoring all franchise inquiries, all those emails. And yeah, we got that email again. And he flew out nets, and and and this is what this is what really kind of made the deal happen. We said, Hey, tell me about your company and what you guys do. And he explained it and he said, Hey, we care about our people. He said, During COVID, when everybody was letting everybody go, Ramal didn't let go of one person. And we heard that and we said, Oh, we left a bit, yeah, we're gonna visit it. We're going, yeah. So, this is the reason all the people like famous influencer, famous chef, everybody wants to come to Dubai, right? Everybody, everyone, because this is the hottest spot in the world. But the our reason is a little different, not because of that, because we found the best partners, and that helps that Dubai is an extremely cool. Yes, yes, yes, it's pretty cool. But that's the biggest business, yeah. Sure, but it's uh but again, I'm sure that goes with the values of the of the brand. Yes, right, which is which is you two, yeah, you know. So, gents, I have to ask, what's what's next on the agenda? Because obviously you have continuous growth, you're about to open another one here. So what is really next for the brand? What are you working on? Yeah, I think I think our goal always has been, you know, between me and Jung, has been we want to create the first national brand out of Korean food. And you know, it's a little bit um qualitative, um but it really means you know, how do we create a brand that everybody recognizes? Um and if you want to get quantitative, it would be making into the you know top hundred QSR, top fifty QSR, whatever that may be. Um, and that's our vision. And that's what gets us really excited. We're you know, growth is growth is a interesting beast because uh a lot of brands actually will fail because they pursue growth so much, right, when they're not ready either. And so we want to always grow at the right pace. I think we as far as StoreCom, if we started franchising a few years ago, we would be at several hundred locations easily, easily. But I think we made the right decision to hold off um and to be really ready. And and and you know, we have that we take our fiduciary duty very heavily, especially now that we're getting into franchising. You know, people are spending their hard-earned money on this brand and betting on this brand. We want to make sure that you know it becomes a really good investment, and we all want to have fun while we're making money also. And so it it it it's it's a very uh you know heavy kind of also mental load to carry, having that responsibility. Um and hence hence why you know like we we have uh groups that will come in the US wanting, you know, 20 stores, 30 stores, or we've we've had people come that want a whole state. And it's yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and it's tempting. They're begging us actually, yeah. But we've just said no because number one, we want to make sure we're the right fit with each other, and you only know that after you know working together for a while, and so you know, we we kind of have this minimum of three units, um uh a minimum, and that's to help a franchisee make sure they they get some exclusive territories so they don't get cannibalized, because that's something we don't want to do. We don't want to build a cup-up with the franchisee and go with another franchisee and open another cup up too many. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense, yeah. Like you just kill your brand. Um, but that's also another reason why we've been limiting our size of the deal to five as well, because we want to grow at the right pace and want to we want to make sure that we're both the right fit. A lot of people actually focusing speed, like how many unit I'm gonna open in this year. That's a lot of people actually focusing. Uh, us is more like direction and quality, yeah. Direction and the quality of the partners that we bring on. That is extremely important to us. Because at the end of the day, they're gonna be the operators, right? And the good thing is that you know, we have learned it all ourselves because you know, we have a lot of corporate stores, the majority is still corporate stores, and so we've had to do it on our own, so we know the pain points of the franchisees and what they'll run into, um, which is which is a kind of an edge that we have. Um but yeah, we want to grow at the right pace, we want to bring on the right partners and make sure that yeah, we we we grow in the right way. But in in the years, I mean together that you have been in in business, and also it's international business, right? What have been the sort of biggest lessons or biggest challenges during that time for the both of you? Ah yeah, the jungle ahead the hardest ones and the lessons it's just hard to find the good people. Yeah, especially in these days, it's super super hard to find the good people. So we actually learn from our experience, if we have a hundred good leaders, we can make a hundred good stores. The leaders that are inside the stores who will make or break this. The recipe system, everything structure is important, but without the people, good people, no matter what kind of brand, what kind of system you got, it's gonna be dumb. Yeah. So we actually learn we are doing the people's business, not the food industries. So we are trying the 2026 Cup Up corporate goal, is going to be how can we find good people? Yeah, and that's always, you know, it's it's A lot of challenge that you know I felt was also trying to make this all happen on obviously very limited capital, just on our own cash flow, right? And you have a wish list, Christmas wish list of a thousand things you want to do, but you have very limited resources to work with. Um and really balancing that out and saying what's the most important right now? Where do we want to invest right now? Right. It's always a chicken or the egg of hey, if we open another store, we're gonna get X more cash flow. But when do you say, nope, let's hold off on opening any stores and let's invest in technology? Let's invest in this, let's invest in that. Um, and so that's a constant question that I have to think through. Um, but yeah, to Jung's point, I I a hundred percent agree. It's I'm all people, and that's part of the reason why we started um getting into franchising was I constantly had, you know, my biggest kind of focus was how do we really get our people inside the stores um to have this real sense of ownership. Right. And you know, we we obviously have incentive programs and you know, based on performance, this and that. But I I think I ultimately kind of came to the conclusion of hey, you want them to act like owners, but they kind of have to be owners. That's true. It is true, yeah. And that's when we thought, you know, it's probably more effective and more efficient to find amazing partners who will become owners of Cut Bob. But they also have to believe in the brand the same way that both of you do. Absolutely. It's a super important thing. Yes. That's why we've been very picky with who we bring on. And actually, the first group of franchisees have been all all internal. Our people inside Cup Bob. Oh, yeah. So we just had last week we had one of our district leaders in operations. He he he manages, you know, used to manage seven stores. You know, he came to me um a few months ago and said, Doc, it's always been my dream. Now I'm ready to become a franchisee. That's a blessing. So he's a he's a he's a he's a franchisee now. I had another district leader come to me and said, I want to become a full-time franchisee and take on a new role as a franchisee now. And so, you know, that person will spin off into the franchisee role here in a few months. Um, we've had, I mean, we had another uh internal employee-owned um store open last month. I mean, we have a lot of internally owned, and and and and that's that was the vision that we were able to provide, right? Because when you're a growing company and you don't have the cash flow of a Chipotle, you know, what do you do? You gotta show them the vision, the growth opportunities. Um, and and you know, they really believe in our brand. And it's it's it's an honor because they they know and understand our brand better than anybody, right? Internally, and for them to want to become a full-time cup op franchisee is is is really an honor. But that's the biggest sort of compliment as well, yes, is that you know your employees then become franchisees because they believe so much in your brand, you know, and you're right, they will also give the values of the company, so it kind of becomes like a legacy piece, yeah. It does, and they know the stores better than any, and they're gonna be obviously fantastic operators um because they know our brand so well. And so yeah, so let's go back to your original questions, and you heard the answer from the dog the next step, and mine is a little different. Maybe just you know, dog look at me like, what are you gonna say, Chong? You just shut your mouth, man. Mine is a little different because you know he actually mentioned about the Panda Express, right? Yes, they are only one national brand in the world that's a Panda Express, right now, right? Uh in China, their main animal is panda. Okay, we're from Korea, we are Korean. The Korean main animal is tiger. So tiger versus panda, who's gonna win? Of course it's tiger. I don't know. Pandas, man. We are coming here, we are coming, you guys give them panda. We might need to tigers coming. T Ts. Yeah, so that's how it goes. We wanna catch him, we wanna we wanna because we learn so many things from the Pandex. Those guys are so amazing at what they do. Oh my goodness, the respect that we have for any, I mean, any restaurateurs and any entrepreneurs. I mean, it's so hard, but in that market, yeah, in that market QS. Yeah, could be a lot of people. See that pioneer because there is actually a much bigger invisible barrier than people think, bringing in another uh a foreign cuisine, yeah, 100%. I mean, you can have a few successful, really successful restaurants, but to try and scale that nationally is it's a different, it's a different game because that invisible kind of wall still exists, and to your point, it's really that K-pop, all the cultural piece from Korea that's coming in, K-pop demon hunters. Yeah, I mean, heck, that you can't buy that kind of impact using a trillion dollars. You can't like every kid in in you know the US wanting to dress up as some kind of K-pop demon hunters character doing Halloween. Um, how do you you can't buy that with money? And this invisible wall is getting broken down, and we see that. I can't tell you how many you know messages I've got from my friends saying, hey, like for my kids, they're asking for a K-pop demon hunter themed birthday party. I want to cook some Korean food. What should I cook? And that is just so powerful, and uh, you know, it it it that just completely changes the macro environment because there will be secular growth in Korean food um for as long as we can see because food is also so interesting in that it's got such a sticky demand profile where if it lands and people like it, it stays and it grows 100%. So don't get me wrong, we got full respect for the Panda Express. Oh, yeah, we learned so much things, and they are monopoly for the Asian, yeah. They are, and they need us something they need some competitors, they do. That's what we want to do because when we're running it, running by himself, by themselves, it's not that fun. But if we're running alongside, yeah, that's gonna be more fun, and we can see, right? Yeah, so we learn. I mean, we learn so much from them, and they're they're pioneers in that, right? And so tigers coming, panda we're chasing you guys down. Would you would you ever consider opening in Korea? Uh so many requests, a lot of requests, but it makes sense or not really, because there's so many cut-up stores. Yeah, it's just yeah, I I don't think it makes a ton of. I mean, maybe I can say this. Yeah, when you go to Korea, they have a pizza restaurant in Korea. They literally selling $25, $30 pizza. Oh, yeah, easily. If it's premium, if they want to actually order spaghetti, maybe that's the reason why my dad made a spaghetti at the same day, like $20, $25, $30 to the premiums from different countries to come to Korea. Gotcha. But in Korea, everyone knows how to make Purgogi and Chapche, right? So I have no reasons because they're selling two, three dollar cup-up over there. If I stay in Utah, I can sell in $10, $12 cup-up. Yeah, I got more premium outside Korea. So, what was the reason to go back to Korea to compete with the Koreans? It's really, yeah, red ocean versus blue ocean, really, and priority. Fair enough. Yeah. I'm premium more in outside Korea. So I'm gonna start with the Dubai killer, you know. Yeah. Well, look, gents, first of all, this has been really fascinating. Okay, first of all. So now what we're going to do is we're gonna take you to what we call the quick fire questions, okay? And this is gonna be for the both of you. Yeah. So, first of all, Doc, we're gonna start with you. Okay. This is the most difficult question, so I'm gonna give you a little bit more time to think about it. Okay, no pressure. Okay. Favorite ingredient, please. Favorite ingredient. Minced garlic. Good shout, good shout, good shout. I mean, any cream any food I cook, you you you leave that out, it's just missing something. And it just adds so much flavor. Um, and cream food naturally uses a lot of garlic. And I like panic when I don't have minced garlic in my fridge when I'm cooking. I'm like, we're we're running low. Minced garlic, really. Like minced garlic, whether it be soups, whether it be a meat dish, whether it be almost any dish. I mean, I I use it. I always use minced garlic. And so, yeah, I think that's my favorite ingredient. Jump? Chili powder, chili powder, yeah, Korean chili powder. Yeah, different kinds of spicy you can get. Okay. So my mom's put in the chili powders she take off from the the ground, she make it dry, ground it, and send in to us. So I got a bunch of chili powder in my refrigerators. Okay. Same question for you are you sweet or salty? Uh salty, salty, spicy or pickled? Spicy. Spicy. Spicy. Kimchi or bibimbap? Oh. I like bibbimbap better. Topoki or gimbap? Topoki. Easy. Easy. We're comparing it for your topogi. Okay. Yeah. The next one is for both of you. Yeah. Right? Okay, so K Dog or K-wings. Oh, that's a tough case. That's hard. That's hard. That's actually really hard. K Wings. Yeah, K wings are hard to be. Yeah. K wings. Love K Dogs, but K wings are so good. Okay. So, question for the both of you. First of all, Doc, for you, if we talk about this moment right now, can you tell me your top three favorite cuisines to eat? Great question. Top three. Okay, Korean has to go in there. Right. Um I can't, I can't take out my good old. I mean, I grew up, I spent, you know, I moved to the US when I was 11. And so every week I have to have Korean food. But I can't have just Korean food a few days in a row. I gotta put in my burgers and pizza. And I'll almost, I'll almost put in like even like some tacos as part of that. Like I mean, American, you know what I mean? I'll flip that in there. Mexican food, I love it. Tex mix. Yeah, text mix. I'll put that in there. So I can't, I can't take out the burgers and the pieces, steaks. Man, the last one, the third slot is a tough one. I would probably have to say Japanese. All right. I mean sushi, the seafood. Um, yeah. All right. I think those three. I think those three. I love all, I mean, I love Indian food. I mean, I love all the cuisines, but yeah, probably my top three, I would say. Jung for you? Top three cuisines? Korean, crean, crean. I'm joking. I'm eating pizza. He's like, why are you eating pizza? It's like McDonald's. They're like, oh, dude, we had we had uh rice for three days in a row. I need my pizza burgers right now. This is this is this is this this is a steak space. Yeah, okay, jugs are all Korean. There is a juggernaut here. Yeah, we're all good. So look, in the same vein, gents, can you tell me your top three food heroes, but they don't necessarily need to be chefs. Food heroes. Yes. Top three food heroes. Wow. Okay. I mean, I first one I have to say Andrew Chung of the founders of Panda. I mean, they they are the guys that we wanna follow and we look up to a lot, right? Because we I mean we can only imagine trying to carve out and become a national brand with an Asian cuisine back then. I mean, it must have been a l I mean exponentially more difficult than doing it now for sure. Um I think what also got me interested in, you know, um I would say you know, because I approached food unlike Zhang more from the business side. And kind of the the event that opened my eyes to that food could be an incredible business was Shake Shack and when they IPO'd. And I I was at you know at the at a hedge fund when that happened. And I just remember I just still remember vividly, you know, I was slaving, I was working away in CNBC, the finance channel's always on, and Shake Shack IPO'd. I think they had they were just under 70 locations and they were IPO at a billion dollars. And I remember just watching that and thinking, what in the world? What? And I I researched more and the founder, you know, Danny Meyer. Yeah, you know, setting the table. That that's a book that we have all of our people read, actually. Um, so Danny Meyer, because you know, personally, there's that, you know, um, I I I had that um kind of personal experience with that third one has to be my mom. She's really the first. I mean, you can't beat your mom's cooking, it's just and it's the happiest place. And I and I'm very fortunate that I should have probably said my mom first, but um it's okay. We can change it. Yeah. She, you know, she, you know, she stays about half the year in Korea and comes to the US and stays with our family um about, you know, six months out of the year. And the biggest, one of the biggest blessings I have is to have her food every day when she's here. It's it's just the most comforting. There's just nothing quite like it. And and it's so funny because I I cook stuff and it tastes very much like my mom's. Because like my you know, taste buds have been modeled after my face. Yeah, exactly. And that's what you make, and so yeah, I can't can never take my mom out. Done. So very good. Jung, top three food heroes for you, please. First one's my mom. Second, Song Yu Su, my spaghetti messager. Yes, my dad. Number three is that my manager, the dance manager told me become a comedian. So he's dead. She became a food hero without knowing. Yeah, right. Because that's the reason why I'm here. So I met a brand because he told me direct message to me, because he cared about me, so I don't wasting my time anymore, and I can tell his number three. Very good. We call that tough love. Tough love. Tough love, tough love, John. So from all of your experiences within hospitality or hedge fund or dancing. Each of you, can you tell me either the funniest kitchen or restaurant incident that you have seen or you have been involved in? Doc, we'll start with you, please. Oh my goodness, a lot, a lot, but I would say a lot of you know, almost heart attack moments all the time. And it would have to be opening new restaurants and something going wrong at the last minute, and you know you're gonna have hundreds of people lining up for the grand opening, but the night before you still don't have your permits. Oh, I still remember. Oh my goodness. It was we had a store um in in Logan, Utah, that we were opening, and the fire marshal was supposed to show up the day before and just went MIA. Oh, and we had been advertising our grand opening like crazy. We knew there were gonna there was gonna be this massive line. And we we literally went to the office and they said this person went home for the day. Obviously, they're not gonna answer their phones. And I remember talking with Jung at 10 p.m. going, oh my goodness, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? And we got this person's number, kept calling, he just didn't answer, just voicemail every time. And we just kept calling, kept calling, and literally at midnight, I think he sent us a text saying, Oh my goodness, you guys, okay, I'll show up tomorrow morning. And that was so close that oh, I will never forget it because we said, What are we gonna do? Like he's I mean, we're not gonna be ready. We can't open the restaurant, and you know, and and more than we'd like to admit, we've had more more than once that we've had these close calls happen, which I think is really the business of restaurants. There's so many things you have to get right to even get an opening going. Um, but that's that's that's a that's a fun memory, yeah. That I will never forget. And junk for you. Okay, it's this is a story not connect with the business, but connect with the food. Okay, very good. I have a five kid, I already told you. I have a full boy and one girl. She's a second, my one of the favorite, okay. Everybody think their favorite, but you know, her name is Iju. Okay. One day Iju take care. Two years girl around her spend time, blah blah blah. The two years girl holding the kick it with the left hand and right hand you got a little same kind of color, kick it. So my daughter thought that was the kick it from the left hand, so it's messed around her fingers. So each week is instantly see this, and she sucked it up her finger, but that was a poo. Oh my goodness. So she thought that was a picket from your lips. Oh my god. That's pretty buddy. You know, shocking stuff. That's pretty good. That's probably one of our top ones. I have to say. Um, what advice would you give to budding or young entrepreneurs who want to open their own business? Um, I would say just know that it's gonna be harder than anything you've done. It's very, very, very difficult and that you're constantly going to have forces around you telling you that it's not gonna work. And that's just the way it is. Um and you have to find your moments that give you the conviction and hold on to that and keep going. You have to, and and it's a different story, and you have to be real too. If you're not getting these confirmations, it's better to fail fast, right? And start a new one. Um, but it's gonna be hard, regardless. It doesn't matter what size business you own, it's hard, it's very difficult, especially restaurants is I mean, it's a different beast. Yeah, I feel like if you can be successful running a restaurant, you can be very successful in other other business sectors as well. And so it just takes operationally, it's just so intensive. It's quite it's it's it's like nothing else, really. Um but you know, you you gotta believe in what you do, you gotta take these confirmations right to your heart and and give yourself the boost to keep going. So jump for you, you know. As you can see, I don't speak English well because I never study in my life. I can pronunciation responsibility, but if you ask me how to write down the responsibility, I can't. I only can say it. So when you actually asking dog, I pull it out to my phone and I translate this. So I want to say this. If you don't give up, even a snail can cross the mountain. Because you know, if you don't give up, even your snail, slowly, slowly increasing the mountain, they can cross the mountain means a lot. That's my philosophy, that's my big world for me, because you know. I'm almost 50 years old, doesn't speak English well. He already collects me, hey John, putting A, hey, can't say this. He already collect me. It's okay, it's not my mother language or anything, right? But I'm not gonna give up. If I don't give up, there are no impossible. Impossible when you actually say it with a different way. I am possible, right? So if I don't give up, I can keep calling it. I want to take a cup up to the moon. This is their logo, it's a moon. The cup up inside the moon. Yeah, love it. You know, I'm not gonna give up until I just kind of sending my cup up to the moons. So that's I want to say it's great advice by people. And the last question for both of you, gentlemen: what advice would you give to your sixteen-year-old self? That's a good question. Sixteen year old self. I think advice would be that. I think it would be very, very curious. I think that's if there's one thing I want to teach my kids as I'm raising my kids, it's about it's not about knowledge base anymore, right? You know, AI of Chat GPT. And you look at, you know, these these people who've been able to make just generational impact, one thing that differentiates these people are just the innate curiosity they have, right? Before there was all this crypto craze, for example, there were a few nerds who just got in contact and heard about this concept and said, Huh, what is that? That is really interesting. And looked into that, right? And I think staying curious about just about anything and everything. Um, and I think that can can can lead you because you don't know where life's gonna take you. Like I never, I never thought I was gonna be in food, never. It's just something that never crossed my mind, but I was always curious about, and and I could it was maybe part of my job, but it's always I walk into anywhere, and the first thing I think of is, oh, how does this work? How does this work? How does this work? And I think that's a quality that will increasingly become more important in the new new age. So yeah, I think that's something that I would tell my younger self. Jung, what would advice would you give your 16-year-old self? Stop practicing head spin anymore. I spent so much time with head spin. That's good advice, really good advice. Lots of hair, too. No, it's just like get experience as much as you can. There are one where I really like it. Any experience can be helping you in life. So for my kids, always, hey, even though this experience can hurt you, but you gotta learn something from those experiences. So get as much as like, oh, you're curious? You want to touch the stove, touch it, you know? Know that it's really hot and don't do it again. So that's maybe 16 years, boy. I'm gonna say it. It's gonna get more experience as much as you can. Doesn't matter that it's gonna be headspin or windmill, whichever, or meet the girlfriend, or get so many experience, it's gonna be helping you later on. That's I want to say young, 16 years junks. If I meet him, can say it. So if anybody wanted to get hold of you through social media, how can they do that? See, my Instagram site runs all of our channels still if you message come back, it's gonna be junk. The chances are it's junk. I am not kidding. Some Africa guys came to Utah and meet me. One of the bicycle guys, he's riding bicycles. Oh my goodness, yeah, three weeks to come to Utah to meet us. Oh wait. One of the guys two weeks driving the car to came to from Mexico, I remember. Yeah, we met them. Like, if you have those kinds of passions, oh yeah. We tell them, hey, you could do this, you could do literally anything. Hey, you you you just bike like 4,000 miles. What? You you I'm not worried about you, you know? It's just so many incredible people that you meet, the stories that you hear, it's just it's just so good. Sending me the message through that cop. My ID is cop bab forever. It's my ID and Instagrams. Text me. Done. Yeah. So what I'll do is I'll put all of those details in the show notes and all the tags that everybody will be able to hold of you. So, gents, on behalf of the chef, the JKP podcast, it has been incredible to have you both here. Thank you so so much for taking the time. I know that you've just landed, it was a 22-hour flight. You're about to do an opening, so it is a pure honor that both of you are doing for your time. Thank you so much. Phenomenal. The very best of luck with the opening here in the UAE, as well as the rest of the things that you have got globally. You have been absolutely incredible. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Invite us again after five years. Come see us at JPR tomorrow. Let's help. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was awesome. These guys are absolute heroes. I love their energy and I love what they are all about. Truly, their story is something so humbling, and the best thing about it, I feel they will always be inspiring others. Jung and Doc, thank you for sharing your ups and downs, as well as taking the time to come into the studio. Honestly, sharing your world with us was amazing. If you want to see more of what they're doing, head over to the show notes. To everyone listening or watching, if you enjoyed this episode, please help us to support the podcast. The only thing I'm going to ask is a few things. Just share the show to your friends, family, loved ones, colleagues, because I want you to bring these conversations to them. It can spark a huge amount of joy and inspire them. At the same time, bring some joy to me by pressing five stars. That's right, team, five stars on a podcast platform. Just you know, just review us. Equally, a massive thank you to Valrona, our headline sponsor, for bringing this content to you and check out their amazing chocolates. And lastly, go and check out our thermos flasks and purchase a few of those because they look amazing, great for your teams. They keep things hot and cold. Go to the show notes, you can purchase them right there. Well gun. Thank you so much for staying on until the very very end, you absolute legend. Chef JKP signing out. Until next time, food is memories.