Meet Aurora’s unofficial mayor of Korea Town: J.W. Lee

J.W. Lee’s first restaurant in downtown St. Louis sat in an old warehouse with only a glowing green neon sign from a nearby nightclub to illuminate the dark street corner. Customers from a previous sushi bar where he’d worked had pulled the money together to help him get Wasabi Sushi Bar up and running in 2003.

“I always wanted to open my own business,” said Lee, who was born in South Korean and moved to the United States in 1998. “That was my American dream. When I asked my customers if they could help, ten chipped in. A lawyer helped me with the lease, a broker helped me find the location and a contractor helped coordinate the build-out. I really had people believing in me.”

Despite the grim location, Lee stood by the idea — and customers showed up. Wasabi Sushi Bar did so well, in fact, that he was able to open second and third locations, eventually running seven stores in St. Louis. (He sold them all in 2011.)

During that expansion, Lee also began looking to expand in other cities, and in 2007, he moved to Denver with his wife and three girls to open Wasabi Sushi Bar in Lakewood.

But that was just the beginning. Full of ideas and dreams, he went on to open more restaurants, mostly serving Japanese-style sushi and ramen, well-known Asian cuisines in the United States and ones that Lee was familiar with. But as Korean food and culture became more popular in the past few years, he also embraced his Korean roots and now dishes Korean fried chicken at six Mono Mono Korean Fried Chicken stores, bulgogi and bibimbap at Seoul Korean BBQ & Hot Pot, and Korean dumplings at Seoul ManDoo, among others.

“I committed myself to provide more options to explore the Korean culture,” Lee said. “We needed more than what we had to offer, so that’s why I’ve just kept doing so much.”

He has become a prominent figure within Denver’s Asian food scene with his Seoul Hospitality Group, particularly on South Havana Street in Aurora.

With 16 concepts under his umbrella, nine of which are located within a quarter-mile radius of each other on Aurora’s South Havana Street, Lee is growing an empire of Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese restaurants that have become a piece of home for the local Asian American and Pacific Islanders community, as well as a destination for other people who want to try some authentic versions of what these cuisines have to offer.

With all his investments in Aurora since 2017, he’s been deemed the unofficial mayor of Aurora’s recently established “Korea Town,” a marketing effort recognizing the many Korean businesses in the four-mile Havana Street corridor between Sixth Avenue and Parker Road.

“It’s partially because of J.W. and the Seoul Hospitality Group that the larger Korean community is now circling around … his locations on Havana Street,” said Garrett Walls, the board president of the Havana Business Improvement District. “As he’s created this hub, the unofficial Korea Town became more official through the years.”

Chasing the American dream

Lee grew up in Gangneung, South Korea, and started working in sushi bars at the age of 19. Over the next six years, while most of his friends were going to college, Lee was learning about the restaurant industry.

“I didn’t have much education, so I started working as a chef,” Lee said. “I figured I would always have something to eat with this job and maybe open my own business down the line.”

In 1998, he decided to move to the United States, where he believed that being a chef was a more respected occupation than in Korea, and landed in Los Angeles because of the large Korean population there. “I didn’t have money, no relatives, and no real grasp on the language skills,” Lee said. “I just came with my dreams.”

He worked at Tosai Sushi in L.A. for a year and a half before he was recruited to man the sushi bar at a restaurant in St. Louis.

Lee worked seven nights a week and attended English classes during the day. He also practiced speaking with customers so he could learn more about what they liked and didn’t like about restaurants. Those conversations are what helped him fund the original Wasabi Sushi Bar.

In 2007, a customer tracked down a spot in Denver for him to expand. Lee fell in love with the weather here and decided that Denver would be the perfect city to raise his three girls. After moving to town, he eventually tired of traveling to and from St. Louis and sold his restaurants there in 2011. A few years later, as ramen was becoming popular, he realized that Denver needed more restaurants, so he opened Menya Noodle Bar on the 16th Street Mall in 2016. He’s since opened a Menya Ramen & Poke near Union Station and a third in Colorado Springs.

Building a restaurant empire

Before he opened his first restaurant in Aurora, Lee visited often to shop at H Mart for Korean ingredients to use at home, but was always disappointed by the limited number of Korean options for lunch or dinner.

As Korean food and culture gained more popularity in the U.S. — partly thanks to K-pop music fans and Korean dramas hitting the mainstream – Lee decided to take advantage of his heritage. In 2017, he purchased and took over Seoul Korean BBQ at 2080 S. Havana and added hot pots — a Chinese and Korean tradition — two years later.

“Even though my background was in sushi, Korean cuisine is in my blood,” Lee said.

Rose Lee, the vice president of Seoul Hospitality Group, (who is unrelated to J.W. Lee) had worked at Seoul K-BBQ for 15 years before Lee took over, and she stayed on afterward. Rose said their big personalities clashed at first, but that Lee was determined to help her grow her career in the restaurant industry.

“His passion is what made me want to continue,” Rose said. “Watching him open restaurants, he does whatever it takes to keep things moving forward, whether it’s jumping in the cook line or washing dishes.”

Lee likes to promote his employees within Seoul Hospitality Group’s team of 175 people and is always open to collaboration. Rose, who is Korean-American, gave Lee the idea to open Thank Sool Pocha K-Pub, a casual nightlife spot with Korean classics like kimchi pancakes and Korean fried chicken, in Aurora in 2019. Her sister now co-owns the concept with Lee.

“I always wanted to open a restaurant myself, but I don’t think I want that anymore,” Rose said. “J.W. has already given me so many opportunities to the point that I feel like I’ve already done that.”

The pandemic, while tough for Lee’s existing concepts, gave him the momentum to ramp up his portfolio and take advantage of the open real estate, especially in Aurora.

In June 2020, he opened Seoul ManDoo in the same South Havana Street strip mall as Thank Sool Pocha. Seoul ManDoo has a simple menu inspired by Lee’s family recipes, with boiled, steamed or fried mandu (“Seoul dumplings”) filled with either kimchi or a beef-and-chive mixture. The next year, he opened Coffee Story, a daytime cafe with Korean beverages; Mochinut, serving mochi doughnuts and Korean rice dogs; and Sintoburi, a Korean market with a focus on kimchi and other side dishes, on South Havana.

Over a three-year period, Lee has also opened six Mono Mono Korean Fried Chicken restaurants, one of which has its own brewery, between Lafayette and Centennial.

And this year, Lee opened Tofu Story, which sources U.S.-grown soybeans from a Korean-owned farm in Minnesota, and Leezakaya, a more upscale Japanese spot with a $100 omakase tasting option, also on South Havana.

Lee said he has no investors and has been able to open so many restaurants because of the success of his others, on top of previous business sales.

“I’m never satisfied with just one new restaurant,” Lee said. “I want to explore more so our next generation has plenty to enjoy.”

James Park, CEO of Denver’s TAG Restaurant Group, met Lee while he was also working in St. Louis 20 years ago. Park never thought Lee would make it with his first sushi restaurant because of the grim location, “but sure enough, he captured an audience and drew a loyal fan base,” he said.

Park didn’t run into Lee until two decades later while eating at Seoul K-BBQ, “and I nearly fell off my chair,” he said. Park, who is Korean-American, has since become a regular at Lee’s restaurants, eating at Seoul K-BBQ & Hot Pot, Tofu Story, Thank Sool Pocha or Leezakaya at least once a week.

“[Lee’s] been a risk-taker, and he’s been rewarded handsomely as a result of that,” Park said. “I don’t know too many people that have the intestinal fortitude to continue to take such risks and see such success.”

“But he’s one of the most humble people I’ve ever met in my life,” he added. “He won’t change if he has 24 or 240 restaurants. He represents our culture in the right and authentic way and makes me incredibly proud to be Korean.”

The Mayor of Korea Town

In 2021, Aurora branded a pocket of South Havana Street between Sixth Avenue and Parker Road as Korea Town, placing logos on Korean-owned businesses across the 4.3-mile business district. A K-Town committee, including Aurora Sister Cities International, local businesses and community members, organized the designation, which Aurora’s City Council passed through a resolution, to bring attention to the growing population and entrepreneurship.

“Aurora has one of the largest contingencies of Korean businesses in the entire state, particularly along the South Havana corridor. We wanted to create a sense of place and show our appreciation and recognition for these businesses,” said Becky Hogan, chair of the Aurora Sister City Korea Committee.

“J.W. Lee is a brilliant strategist with unlimited energy, and we’re so happy he has chosen among his many restaurant interests to focus on Aurora, particularly Korea Town,” Hogan continued. “He not only produces revenue for our city but he’s also very community-minded.”

Koreans are the fourth largest immigrant population in Aurora, according to the city, and in addition to restaurants and markets, there are Korean spas, pubs, and insurance and tax businesses scattered throughout the area.

“For all intents and purposes, [Lee] is the mayor of Korea Town,” Park said. “There’s nobody else who better represents it from a community and charitable standpoint. He’s single-handedly transformed that quarter-mile radius with his concepts.”

Lee wasn’t formally a part of the K-Town committee, but has been a key part of developing what is now considered Korea Town with the opening of his nine concepts on South Havana.

“Aurora is the most diverse city in Colorado, and we needed diversity in order to grow and help expand Korean palettes, which is why I’m so invested in the city,” Lee said.

As a major stakeholder, Lee works closely with the Havana Business Improvement District, which has helped Seoul Hospitality Group secure local grants, promoted his openings and marketed his restaurants on social media. Lee said the city of Aurora has also been abundantly helpful in getting his new spots open and supporting him through the permitting process.

“We’ve been able to put him directly in front of the mayor, and bring the mayor to all of his establishments for lunch,” Walls said. “He’s sat down with the mayor and city council members over Korean BBQ and soon tofu to discuss the future, and J.W. wants to take advantage of that because they want to help any way they can.”

Walls said Korea Town has been an organic movement and would never have been possible 10 years ago, especially without figures like Lee. “Without intending to, Lee has provided a home for the local Korean community,” Walls said.