South Korea Finally Welcomes Back Popeyes After A Two-Year Wait

Think back, if you can bear it, to the first few months of the pandemic in 2020. Unless you dove immediately into a cooking frenzy from your stockpile of beans, you were likely one of the millions whose weeknight dinners arrived at your doorstep, packed neatly in takeout boxes from local restaurants scrambling to survive without in-person dining service. Eateries that stayed in business were able to do so by ensuring their offerings were travel-friendly, which meant that hamburgers were more popular than ever. In Seattle, for instance, Eater reported that a James Beard Award-winning restaurant fashioned a drive-thru rig in its parking lot and started slinging burgers for the first time.

South Korea is seeing a similar craving for burgers, says The Korea Herald. The outlet cites a June study from market research company Euromonitor International that says the country's hamburger market has shot up 42% to 4 trillion won ($2.93 billion) this year, which is up from 2.8 trillion won in 2018. In January, Restaurant Brands International announced that Korea's growing yen for fast food would eventually give way to the return of Popeyes, whose business in the country had previously been shuttered by poor demand. As of this week, that time has come. 

Earlier this year, Popeyes and Silla Co., Ltd. subsidiary Silla Group announced a plan to open hundreds of Popeyes restaurants in South Korea "in the coming years", per Restaurant Brands International. The news came to a couple of years after the chain had packed up its knives and left South Korea due to "business difficulties" and a lack of demand, per The Korea Herald. It had originally entered the scene in 1994, per the outlet, and had slimmed down from 200 to a mere 10 locations by 2020.

But with the current fast-food boom sweeping South Korea, spicy Louisiana-style chicken is, evidently, just what the doctor ordered. The Herald reports that the first location will open in the coming weeks near Seoul's busy Gangnam Station, and that employee training will start next week. Restaurant Brands International's José E. Cil says Popeyes also plans to expand business in Indonesia and France, per Meat + Poultry.