The focus of BCD, in her opinion, was on “serving the community: people that work late, people that need to eat when they’re hungry.” “It’s a 24-hour restaurant, which I thought was amazing because you don’t really have a lot of those anymore,” she said. Jennifer Tai, a recent transplant from San Francisco, appreciated the restaurant’s late hours. “BCD has been a huge part of this business community.” “The food is delicious, and I am really sorry to hear that the owner passed away,” Lopez wrote in an email. Geral Lopez, a mortgage consultant who works nearby, said he frequently brings his clients to BCD. “Even though soondubu originally came from Korea!” “I even heard that they opened a BCD Tofu House in Korea too,” Park said, noting that, perhaps counterintuitively, Lee’s success flowed from the U.S.
“She made Koreatown and this soondubu very well and very famous,” he said. Park said that BCD was particularly popular with non-Koreans and was a great place to introduce people to Korean dishes and flavors. “I live in Torrance, but I drive 30, 40 minutes here,” he said. Kyung-chun Park, 60, was eating soondubu alone at a small table under the tent. While those days may be temporarily over, it still has outdoor dining until 2 a.m., and takeout is available 24 hours a day. BCD is known as a go-to after-hours location following a night on the town. A manager took diners’ temperatures and offered squirts of hand sanitizer.Ī large white tent has been set up in the ample parking lot to accommodate further outdoor dining. Two check-in areas are set up outside the restaurant - one for takeout and another for dine-in.
#BCD TOFU HOUSE FULL#
Lee when you’re scraping your jigae bowl clean.”Īt the original Wilshire Boulevard BCD Tofu House location on Tuesday afternoon, the patio was mostly full of diners at socially distanced tables, picking at banchan and slurping on bubbling, glowing tureens of stew. “Please support this Koreatown empire and honor Ms. “Lee - as a first-generation immigrant-brought her delicious recipes and healthful approach to countless satiated diners,” the center wrote in a tribute. The center helped spread the news of her death online. She served as president of the Global Children Foundation, a nonprofit organization started by Korean American mothers that provides relief to children and families.ĭuring the COVID-19 outbreak, Lee partnered with the Koreatown Youth and Community Center to feed low-income seniors who were isolated by the pandemic. Lee, who considered herself a “diplomat of sorts” for Korean food, also was dedicated to feeding hungry mouths around the world. “Her brand and legacy will continue to live on, and she will always be an inspiration to myself and many others.” “ was an amazing entrepreneur and community leader who impacted the lives of many,” wrote friend and Orange County supervisor Michelle Steel on Facebook. The transpacific empire grew to include outposts in Seattle, South Korea and Tokyo, and its reach remains global with a line of take-home soondubu starter packs through House Foods. Today, there are 13 restaurants in the BCD Tofu House chain in the United States, largely concentrated in Los Angeles and Orange counties with locations in New York, New Jersey and Dallas. Within two years of her first restaurant, Lee opened two more in Southern California. In the kitchen, she cooked up a plan and a secret recipe for a soup base that she refused to share with anyone, including her husband, Lee told The Times in 2008. Lee treated a common dish with uncommon dedication. The restaurant’s name was short for Buk Chang Dong, a neighborhood in Seoul where her in-laws once ran a restaurant. Lee opened the first BCD Tofu House on Vermont Avenue in Koreatown in 1996 with limited restaurant experience but plenty of confidence and a singular focus on a singular dish: soondubu jjigae, silken hunks of tofu in bubbling spicy broth. She is survived by her husband, Tae-ro Lee, and three sons, the Hankyoreh reported. She had been fighting ovarian cancer the past five years, and her illness had recently worsened, the newspaper reported. Lee, who founded the popular BCD Tofu House restaurant chain and helped raise the global profile of Korean cuisine, died July 18 at age 61, according to the Korea Times.
Together that was enough for her to build a tofu empire.
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