Not-so-hidden gem Korean restaurant in Toronto is getting so popular it needs to turn customers away
A recently opened Korean restaurant in Toronto has gotten so popular so quickly that they’re already having to turn guests away.
North York’s Nakwon Kisa Restaurant is so new to the neighbourhood that you may not have even known it was there. For those in the know, however, it’s already become one of the city’s hottest (and hardest to get) meals in the short month that it’s been open.
The latest location in a three-and-a-half restaurant chain, Nakwon, that also has haunts in Markham, North York, and Richmond Hill, Nakwon Kisa is not only a new concept for the chain, but quite possibly also its most popular.
While the elder three locations operate as full-service Korean restaurants, replete with bibimbap, pork bone soup, all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue and hot plate offerings, Nakwon Kisa is something of an outlier.
Inspired by quick-service gisa sikdang restaurants in Korea, Nikwan Kisa serves up a new menu every single day, frequently even switching between lunch and dinner service. Soups, bibimbap, katsu and a seemingly infinite array of banchan are frequently found on the menu.
To top it all off, the restaurant also offers an unlimited salad bar and bottomless refills of rice and soup. Not a bad ticket at all, if you can get in, that is.
A significantly stripped-back sister to the GTA’s other Nakwon restaurants, it’s easy to imagine that Nakwon Kisa would be the least popular of the three. It is the youngest, after all, and it offers a notably smaller selection than the others.
In reality, though, the opposite is true. Since officially opening in early July, Nakwon Kisa has been virtually overrun, consistently, with folks eager to sink their teeth into the meal of the day.
As it happens, the restaurant has been so popular since opening that, by Aug. 10, just over a month after opening, the restaurant took to their Instagram account to announce that they’d be imposing a daily guest limit to “ensure quality and a better dining experience,” as well as a break between lunch and dinner services to prepare more meals and restock the salad bar.
The following day, the restaurant posted again, issuing an apology to any guests who came to the restaurant but were turned away without a meal.
“To all the guests who came but had to leave without dining, we truly feel sorry,” the caption of the post reads. “Especially to those who travelled from far away, our hearts feel heavy.”
They go on to explain that, while they have experienced a drop in sales since imposing their daily guest limit and the two-seating format, they do feel that “operations have become much smoother.”
While Nakwon Kisa acknowledges the validity of guests’ frustration when they arrive at the restaurant, particularly during their 3:30 to 5 p.m. break, and are either turned away or asked to come back at 5 p.m., they hold their conviction that the new model is best for the business strongly.
And, it seems, plenty of customers agree with them.
“Y’all are doing great, gaining popularity can be difficult because you have to go through trial and error to learn to run it smoothly with new attention,” one person commented. “But that new attention is only because you were already running a great business! Keep going, you will figure it out.”
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Another person notes that they “live across the street and can see the daily line up,” adding, “Looking for my opportunity to get my chance to come dine there.”
It’s been said before, and we’ll say it again: there are few things Toronto loves more than standing in line, particularly when there’s the possibility of food at the end, so, ultimately, it looks like Nakwon Kisa is on fertile ground for a fruitful future in the city.
If you can’t manage to get into Nakwon Kisa any time soon, though, the good news is that you can always visit any of Nakwon’s other locations to satisfy your cravings in the meantime.
Nakwon Kisa
Address: 4895 Yonge St.
Phone: 416-223-1117
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