For Koreans who moved to New York in the 1980s, Midtown was a haven for those searching for a taste of home. The proximity to several subway lines and the success of Kunjip, known for its japchae (stir-fried glass noodles with vegetables) and seafood pancakes, were driving forces for the Korean restaurants proliferating on 32nd Street. In 1993, an even wider swath of New Yorkers were introduced to Korean food when Ruth Reichl reviewed Korean staple Kang Suh, which served everything from Korean barbecue to tofu soup. Restaurants began to open 24/7 to accommodate the many diners and rising rents.

But Kang Suh closed in 2017 with a whimper. Kunjip and seolleongtang (ox bone soup) spot Gammeeok are some of the few in the first wave of Korean restaurants that remain open on 32nd street, and both have moved locations in recent years. Gammeeok in particular moved to a second-floor space to save money on rent, at $20,000 a month on a 10-year lease.

It’s a result of a growing reality: Though 32nd Street is still a hub for Korean restaurants with all its signs, restaurants, and bars, the street has changed significantly since the ’90s. Many mom-and-pop business have closed, replaced by restaurants backed or run by chaebol, aka “rich class,” conglomerates from Korea that are essentially giant corporations. Standalone restaurants by single operators in general are increasingly rare; even people who aren’t part of a corporation or a franchise consolidate their businesses, often running multiple spots on 32nd Street.

K-Town is in many ways akin to a Korean version of Times Square — packed with chains and franchises, a consequence of higher rents, government policies, and the nature of business in Korea itself.

It’s not impossible for an immigrant-started community to remain filled with independent businesses in New York. Manhattan’s Chinatown has remained somewhat hospitable and affordable to local, Chinese-run and -operated restaurants.

But in Chinatown, owning the land has helped stem the rise of cost of living and gentrification. In Koreatown, most of the land is owned by real estate groups, which are able to charge enormous rents partially due to ambitious chains looking to expand into U.S. markets. In 2012, the New York Times reported that “restaurateurs could pay as much as $1.5 million in key money” to just obtain the lease. Nowadays, that figure could be $1 million to $3 million, based on the space, according to several restaurateurs who spoke on background. Most recently, Korea’s oldest restaurant company opened its flagship barbecue restaurant, Sam Won, with an estimated $5.5 million buildout and a reported asking rent of $85,000 a month.

Hooni Kim, the chef of Michelin-starred Danji and Hanjan, offered $1 million a year on one space in the area, only to be turned down, he says. “It’s an economy that just doesn’t make sense for most restaurateurs,” he tells Eater.

The only business that can afford to pay such rents are chaebol, conglomerates in Korea that own everything from restaurants to beauty brands. For context: Five of the largest chaebol in Korea generated 56 percent of the nation’s GDP. In Korea, your coffee or baked good could come from Samsung via the Shilla Group, and your blood sausage from OurHome, a food-services company owned by LG. After opening 300 gamjatang (pork bone stew) restaurants in Korea, Kim Sun-kwon also opened Caffe Bene, a cosmetics company, and other fast-casual restaurants. SPC Brands, the company behind Paris Baguette, operates over 30 food brands and is even licensed to expand Shake Shack in Korea.

In Korea, the rest of the market is dominated by franchises — 107,000 of them as of 2016 — sometimes called gapjil, to describe the authoritarian relationship between franchises and their franchisees. This has played out in various scandals and lawsuits for mismanagement and misleading franchise owners.

That translates to New York’s K-Town, too. Thirty-Second Street happens to have locations of Paris Baguette, Tous Les Jour, Pelicana, and BBQ Chicken — all backed by one of these multimillion-dollar conglomerates and franchises.

Oftentimes, companies will pay big bucks for high-profile real estate even if the restaurant or cafe operates at a loss because they see the real estate as a way to market to a global audience of tourists who visit NYC. It’s also worth it for growth, in part due to policies back home. The Korean government has been honing in on regulations around the proliferation of corporate-owned franchises in hopes of protecting mom and pops in Korea, and now, these companies look to the U.S. market for new locations. They even have the help of the Korean government to expand outside the country; the government offers legal support and PR development in hopes of turning a Korean chain into a global brand as big as McDonald’s.

So local restaurateurs have begun to look beyond the confines of 32nd’s ground floor, stacking restaurants on top of restaurants like in Seoul, as well as expanding into neighboring streets along Fifth avenue. The perpetually crowded Jongro BBQ, for instance, is on the second floor above a Citibank, where it still commands a two-hour wait on weeknights. The owner has also bolstered his presence by operating other barbecue restaurants, Dons Bogam and Dons Bogam Black, on the other side of Fifth Avenue as well as on 30th and Fifth, and expanding Jongro BBQ to the fifth floor of the same building.

All this increased conglomeration and culinary monopolies often come at the expense of creativity. New talent can hardly thrive in such an environment, and the result is that city’s most ambitious Korean restaurants are now staying away from 32nd Street in order to find success; some of the most critically acclaimed newer Korean restaurants, like Atoboy, tend to look outside of K-Town to do business.

Increased conglomeration and culinary monopolies often come at the expense of creativity

In an interview, Atoboy’s Ellia Park mentioned “the price was really high over there [on 32nd Street]... With that said, being near 32nd Street was not a big deciding factor for the location of Atoboy — however, we like that we have ultimately become K-town-adjacent.” The restaurant group behind modern hits like Her Name Is Han and Take 31 purposefully looked beyond 32nd Street due to constraints of rent, according to Jinan Choi, a manager at HAND Hospitality.

“If we were to focus too much on the finances, such as rent, we wouldn’t be able to provide a proper dining experience that allows us to share the culture and image we had in mind for any of our restaurants,” Choi says.

Chef Hooni Kim of Danji adds that the pressure for restaurants on the street to be open long hours can be a detriment to food quality: “There’s no way to open a restaurant for 24 hours seven days a week and have any kind of consistency,” he says. “And that’s 21 shifts that the chef has to work. So you’re going to have to have three chefs running the restaurant, and whoever’s in charge is not gonna have a life. And I [would] have to charge double.”

But this doesn’t mean Korean food in NYC isn’t doing well — in fact, more exciting Korean restaurants are opening then ever, just not on 32nd Street.

Thanks to the rise of Korean culture in the mainstream (termed hallyu, meaning “wave”) and Korean-American chefs like David Chang and Roy Choi who were influenced by, but not restricted to, the food they grew up with, the perception of Korean food has changed in the United States. It’s not uncommon now to find kimchi at local grocery stores, or gochujang (red chili paste) chips at Whole Foods.

Creative restaurateurs are expanding outward: Modern Korean small-plates restaurant Oiji is in the East Village, as is newer Korean-French fine dining spot Soogil. Korean fried-chicken gastropubs Barn Joo and Turntable both have locations next to 32nd Street, but they’ve since been able to expand downtown and in Union Square as well.

K-Town may not be the same haven of local Korean flavor that it used to be, but the growing number of Korean restaurants across the city signal that 32nd Street is no longer the only place to get a taste of Korean culture. All kinds of New Yorkers, no matter where they’re from, are now willing to eat it — everywhere from the Financial District to Harlem.

“It used to be that Koreans were surprised and happy if a non-Korean knew how to say ‘bibimbap’ and impressed that the diner spoke Korean so well,” says Colin, a manager at K-Town coffee shop Grace Street. “But now it’s common knowledge to know basic Korean dishes.”