Jong Kim doesn’t like to stop working. He’s either reorganizing the beverage fridges or running to and from the back with boxes of products to restock. The thin, seventy-year-old man wearing a loose cap, a striped polo tucked into his pants, and sensible black sneakers takes a break to wipe his brow with his forearm and drink water. There’s always something to do, and Kim is going to do it.
This was the scene during my visit to Chas Market and Kitchen, an 88-year-old business housed in a concrete-block building. It’s easily missed when seen from Interstate 35 in San Antonio’s Government Hill neighborhood. Even a white sign bearing the words “Taco. Hamburger. Fish Plate,” as fetching as it is in its stark design, is hard to catch. Move closer, though, and paper signs bearing photos of Korean dishes come into focus.
Inside, Korean candies, posters of K-pop bands, and other knickknacks share space with their Mexican equivalents. There is also a tortilla machine near the front door. In the center of the room is a series of booths and metal-topped picnic tables above which hang long vents. Beyond the front register and a left turn at the drink fridges leads to the back food counter and kitchen behind it. Early morning customers order breakfast tacos at the rear counter, while in the middle of the store, patrons ask for Korean lunches and dinners. Together, the components make Chas Market and Kitchen a San Antonio original, approximately eight miles south of the city’s Koreatown.
It wasn’t always this way. The original owner, Charles “Chas” DeLeon, opened Chas Supermarket as a small grocery in 1936. Former state representative and U.S. congressman Henry B. González was a friend of DeLeon and a common visitor to the market, where he took time to shake hands and hobnob with constituents. A photo of DeLeon, DeLeon’s wife, González, and Lyndon B. Johnson is framed and hung to the side of the front register.
In 1979, on a whim, Kim and his wife, Wha, emigrated from Seoul to Houston. “One day we just think about it. Let’s go to the U.S.A. But I didn’t think about being here for forty years,” Kim said, laughing. Kim found work at a supermarket. “It was a way to make money and learn English,” he told me. Kim eventually became a manager, but decided to relocate to San Antonio, where his brother lived, two years later at his sibling’s behest.
Kim’s brother enticed him to move to the Alamo City to work with him at his supermarket on the South Side of San Antonio. “It was H-E-B–size and we sold one hundred watermelons a day,” Kim says. But the Kims couldn’t compete with the likes of H-E-B. After the store closed, Kim was then hired by DeLeon to work at Chas Market.
In 1985, as DeLeon was set to retire, Kim purchased the store and changed its name to the current one. He continued selling the breakfast tacos the supermarket always had. To retain and entice more customers, Kim added hamburgers, sandwiches, and chicken-fried steak to the menu. He never once considered taking tacos off the menu. “That’s the main thing,” he says. He wanted to add enchiladas but had maxed out on space. Or so he thought.
Due to intense supermarket competition, Kim began switching Chas Market from a grocer to a convenience store with an emphasis on dine-in food. Nine years ago, Jong’s wife convinced him to add Korean food to the menu. Kim removed the grocery goods from the center of the store and purchased discounted picnic tables at the Home Depot. A neighbor offered to install metal tops and vents, a necessity for Korean barbecue, where meat is cooked on portable grills at the tables. “We had known each other a long time,” Kim said. “He put in everything. So we just go.” Kim, his wife, and their son took up the cooking. It did well from the beginning, but Kim was still surprised. “People love Korean food!” he recalled thinking.
Pearl Brewery workers would come by during lunchtime; mechanics from body shops on Broadway were regulars; military personnel from Fort Sam Houston also dined at Chas. They still do. He credits their patronage because of previous deployments to Korea. “They miss kimchi,” Kim said. “They miss the flavor.” But now as Government Hill is redeveloping, his customer base is changing to a balance between old-timers and newer residents. “Also, people are moving back. It’s booming,” Kim notes, as he waves his arm across the dining room during our conversation.
Diners were either in the middle of their meals or being escorted to tables. The funky and homey aroma of kimchi hung in the air while small needles of spice brushed across my eyelashes and scraped up my olfactory system. Bowls of bibimbap, rice topped with vegetables and strips of beef, at turns sweet and savory, sat in front of some customers. Kimchi soup sweetened with pork was carried by servers to other tables. Grills were prepared for patrons to cook Korean cuts of meat. Other folks reached for burgers and fries. The $29.99 all-you-can-eat Korean buffet wasn’t in place that day. Another thing I was surprised to see missing was the natural hybrid of Korean tacos.
Although K-Mex, as I call it, developed during the eighties and nineties in Southern California, the style wasn’t introduced to the public until 2008, when Korean chef Roy Choi rolled out his Kogi BBQ taco truck to the Los Angeles streets.
As I mention in my book, American Tacos, within two years, K-Mex tacos were an obsession nationwide. It also paved the way for wider curiosity and acceptance of Korean food in general. The Kims weren’t aware of it, but they joined in the late wave of popularity without K-Mex tacos. They don’t have a place on the menu. There’s little space to expand, anyway.
Breakfast tacos are enough. And they’re good. The potato and egg taco, wrapped in a freshly made flour tortilla spotted brown from the flattop, is a litmus test for me. If a taqueria or any business selling a potato and egg taco can cook cubed potatoes to the ideal firm exterior and fluffy interior, I’m excited to try their other offerings. The cooks at Chas Market and Kitchen nailed it with well-seasoned, fluffy scrambled eggs. The same eggs wrap thick strips of cracked bacon. Tart and peppy salsa verde amp up both tacos.
Unfortunately, the picadillo looked more like chorizo and beans with the occasional cubed potato. It did taste better than it looked, with a spicy kick from the ground meat. The barbacoa was better. Well-chopped with slick grease lacquering each piece of meat, the taco is a product of an expert hand who knows how to balance beef flavor with natural fat. It pairs well, naturally, with Big Red or canned banana boba tea—something only Chas Market and Kitchen can offer.
Chas Market and Kitchen
1431 N. Pine, San Antonio
Phone: 210-227-1521
Hours: Sunday 11–5, Monday–Wednesday 6:30–2, Thurs–Friday 6:30–9, Saturday 7–9
