70 Bayard
Architect: John P. Cleary / Developed by Gordon, Levy & Co.
Built in 1901
2024
70 Bayard
Architect: John P. Cleary / Developed by Gordon, Levy & Co.
Built in 1901
1940s
Interview
WITH KELLY (OWNER OF TADA FRIED CHICKEN AT 70 BAYARD, TOFU TOFU AT 96 BOWERY AND LULULALA AT 139 HESTER)
Interview conducted in May 2025.
+ Please give me a brief introduction of yourself. My name is Kelly and I’ve been in America for 15 years now.
I was born in Seoul and I have one daughter. My father was a professor and my mother was a business woman. My whole family was very middle-class. I have three brothers and 1 sister. I’m the third sibling; my first brother is an acupuncturist (Eastern medicine doctor) and my sister immigrated to Canada; then there’s me and I have two younger brothers. I was different from my other siblings. I worked at a trading company when I was young and then after I got married, I worked at a Hilton in the food & beverage industry. I liked it and later opened my cafe.
[Before] When I was living in Korea, I had my own business. When I was young, I had an interest in business and hospitality for customers. I used to work at a hotel and then I started my own business around 1997: a small cafe. At that time in Korea, there were no cafes at all. I had visited Canada and Seattle and had visited Starbucks… I loved coffee and was crazy for coffee, so I was thinking about a coffee business. I opened my own shop in the Hannam Dong area in Seoul, Korea and there are a lot of foreigners and Americans living around there. All of our customers were foreigners, and it was successful.
Kelly at Tada Friend Chicken. Photographed during our interview session, May 2025.
I made espresso coffee and they said [my cafe] was number one… It was called Puffin Cafe. At the time, only specialty hotels had espresso machines, and my cafe. When I visited Seattle, coffee and panini sandwiches were popular, so I brought over a panini machine… then it took off.
I opened for about 5 years, then I moved to another province and changed things.
I had 3 cafes, a bakery shop and a lounge for about 10 years. But I had too much desire to extend the business, and then one day I failed. I wanted too much.
I received some signs to go to America… In 2009, I arrived in Seattle and went to Vancouver right away to see my daughter. [She was going to college there.] In my life, for the first time, I had a break – a one-month break. From Seattle, I then came to New York.
Kelly’s diagrams and notes sketched during our interview, May 2025.
+ How long have you been working in Chinatown? How did you come to be connected to Chinatown? What prompted you to open your restaurant(s) in Chinatown?
When I came to New York City, I first worked in K-Town for 6 years as a waitress. I didn’t have any money when I first came. I only had $3k and no one helped me.
It was hard training – I didn’t know that there were so many difficulties for workers!! The problem was also that I didn’t know about [making] Korean food! In Korea, I did Western coffee and food! It was stressful and I wasn’t sure if I felt like I could survive. My daughter visited me and my mom also told me not to continue…
Then one day, when I was working in K-town, one customer, a lady, came in. She said – Please, if you want to do something, just try. She was from Korea and had just arrived. I think you are different than others.
One day, I got a chance [to try].
There were six people [who are the partners today] who used to be K-town waiters and waitresses. None of us had money. So we pooled together to start “Tofu Tofu” [Restaurant. One of the partners, Jay] and I together are key members. The others are silent partners without any experience of owning a business.
Jay had the same experience as me!!! He came to the U.S. about 30 years ago. He arrived in San Diego, went to school at FIT and did fashion management. He had 5 clothing shops, but it didn’t work out. He opened a Korean restaurant in Queens, but gave it up a year later. He moved to K-town to be a waiter, starting out at the bottom again… But he knew how to make mistakes, how to make money…
At the time, I was working at different restaurants, waiting tables six days a week. We met at one of the restaurants. One day he asked me to partner with him – He didn’t want to do fashion anymore. The industry had moved sales online, so he thought, only in restaurants can we make money.
I said no – I didn’t want to partner. He kept persisting, and so I took a chance. I knew the restaurant business and had experience with staff and running a restaurant, so I agreed. OK, I’ll be involved.
We started with 5 partners; Jay in charge of finance, me in charge of service, and three people without any experience. Jay controls the inside and I control the outside. We have a partner who makes the side dishes; she’s over 85 and works two days/a week now. Now, Jay and I make all of the side dishes, chicken sauces and kimchi. We’ve been doing this for almost eight years at night; I finish making kimchi usually at 4 in the morning.
In K-town, 70% of our customers were Chinese. When Jay suggested the partnership, we went many times to Chinatown to look for spaces. I was thinking about Chinese and foreign customers. We saw many places in Chinatown.
At the time, almost 9 years ago, 96 Bowery (our first restaurant Tofu Tofu is) was a business owned by a Hong Kong woman. She closed it down and it was not an easy space to rent. When I went there, I said to Jay – this is the space! I liked the high ceilings and old brick. Everyone pooled small amounts of money together. The business owner had given up. For the previous owners, she had asked for a $130,000 premium. We suggested that we could give $10,000 every month for a year… and so, she decided to give it to us. When we got the space, after just one week, we opened! Everything changed. We painted and changed everything. There were a lot of problems [when we first got the space]because they didn’t take care of the shop.
After six months, business started to pick up a little bit. After a year, we could pay our staff (though I still didn’t get paid myself!!), but after a month, three of the staff left. So one of the partners came back to work – they did not give up the partnership. Everyone was paid, but I held off because I was on my own… it wasn’t the time. For 2 years I didn’t get paid.
We signed for 96 Bowery in 2017 and just renewed a 10-year lease in 2024. The landlord is in California and I’ve never met her. She just manages the building from afar.
We opened up Tada Fried Chicken at 70 Bayard in 2021 and Lululala at 139 Hester Street in November 2024.
+ Who owns the building?
John, who owns a lot of buildings in the Chinatown area, owns 70 Bayard. Jay has contact with him.
+ What do you know about 70 Bayard – Can you share any information about the building’s past lives?
It was a bakery shop before we moved in. It was empty – they had remodeled a little bit but the renters just disappeared.
+ Tell me about the renovations you completed on the interior.
During [the COVID-19] pandemic, the building owner rented it, but the renters may have hit some issues and left.
We spent almost a year with nothing to do because the previous renters had stopped in the middle and we didn’t get the paperwork to process completing the renovation for so long.
[When we did get the green light] we did some light painting and got new kitchen equipment, but didn’t renovate so much more [since the space was partially renovated.]
Kelly and Jada photographed during our interview session, May 2025.
+ You’re the owner of three restaurants in Chinatown – Tofu Tofu, Tada Fried Chicken and Lululala. How long have they been in their current locations? Can you tell me about the menu of these spaces and what you hope to bring to those who visit?
With Tofu Tofu, it’s been 9 years, so in that time, it’s a big difference – we have regular customers who return. Kids have grown up and the high school students now bring in their friends!!
Tofu Tofu makes Korean home-cooking food – it’s “longer duration” food.
Tada is chicken-focused; casual, easy, simple, fast dining to match Bayard, which is a fast-paced street. To this day, Jay and I are still making the kimchi ourselves!!! When we decided on the menu at Tada, we decided that there would be no extra side dishes.
Lululala is the most “Boonshik” style food (like kimpop, etc.) — focused on take-out.
Kelly at Tada Friend Chicken. Photographed during our interview session, May 2025.
+ What’s your favorite thing on the menu here?
Here at Tada – the chicken!
At Lululala, it’s the chicken kimpop.
At Tofu Tofu it’s the Soondubu Jjigae, tofu stew
+ As the years pass, how do you feel that you belong to the Chinatown community?
If we didn’t have the connection of the Chinatown community, we would close our doors. The other Korean restaurants in the area didn’t make it. We have a lot of Chinatown community folks who come to the restaurant to support us.
During the coronavirus pandemic, we never closed… everyone closed, but we didn’t. We made lunch boxes for the hospitals. It was only Jay and me working and two staff in the kitchen.
+ What are your fondest memories of this building?
At 70 Bayard, it felt like we were never going to open – the processing was difficult and there were lots of problems [to open up.] But when it was opening time, I was really thankful: we finally managed to make it!
At Tofu Tofu, it was when we first were opening and all of the partners, everyone, worked together as one to paint and fix up the place together.
At Lululala, it’s the first time we weren’t stressed. [Before the opening] we finished cleaning everything and we built it according to Jay’s idea.
Tada Fried Chicken – Food and interior, May 2025.
70 BAYARD - BUILDING PHOTOGRAPHS
Photographs taken in 2024.