"Gukbap Is Free for Persons of Distinguished Service to the State" — The Owner Who Once Donated 50 Cups of Coffee to a Fire Station [Warm Stories]

[The Financial News] A small gukbap restaurant tucked away in a quiet neighborhood in Sanggye-dong, Nowon District in Seoul has recently been warming hearts online.The story of 32-year-old owner Park Min-gyu, who has been serving free gukbap to elderly Persons of Distinguished Service to the State,is what set off the wave of attention.
Every week, Park has been offering free meals to elderly Persons of Distinguished Service to the State and sharing their stories on his social networking service (SNS) accounts. On June 30, an elderly Vietnam War veteran who had long kept his veteran’s uniform in his closet took it out, put it on, and visited the gukbap restaurant. Park, seeing him, burst into enthusiastic "seal claps" and pure joy, and that scene went viral. Online commenters praised it as "a heartwarming sight you rarely see these days," and on July 1, Nowon District Mayor Oh Seung-rok personally visited the restaurant to encourage Park.
To meet the man at the center of this attention, we visited Park’s gukbap restaurant on the 2nd. Even though the busy lunch hour had long passed, Park was still handling delivery orders. He greeted us with the same bright smile seen in the video and pointed toward a table where customers were eating.There, by coincidence, sat the elderly Person of Distinguished Service to the State from the video, 83-year-old Lee Geon-hee, sharing a meal with two fellow Vietnam War veterans.When asked, "Now that the video has gone viral, do people recognize you a lot?" Lee gave a shy smile and replied, "He’s so bright and diligent, unlike many young people these days," praising Park.


Park originally dreamed of becoming an airplane pilot. But as the COVID-19 pandemic dragged on, job opportunities in that field dried up, and he started working part-time jobs. That was how he first stepped into the food service industry. There is still a model airplane displayed in one corner of the restaurant, but Park smiled and said, "I have no lingering regrets about flying. What I do now suits me much better."
His restaurant provides free meals to children from orphanages, low-income households, elderly people living alone, Persons of Distinguished Service to the State, and Korean War veterans. He began after seeing a friend who runs a barbecue restaurant on Jeju Island treat Persons of Distinguished Service to the State to free meals.The fact that his grandparents were Persons of Distinguished Service to the Stateand that his parents always lived generously, helping others,also had a big influence on him, and it matched his own dreamof "running a business in a fun way while living a life with a sense of romance" from a young age, so he has been able to carry out these good deeds joyfully.
Since news of the "gukbap restaurant’s good deeds" spread, the question he hears most often is, "Do you have anything left if you give that much away?" But Park’s conviction is firm. Calling the elderly "living history textbooks," he explained that the conversations he shares with them are worth far more than the 10,000 won he charges for a bowl of gukbap. He set the free-meal hours from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. so that, once the busy lunch rush is over, he can sit down and talk with them for a while.
Among the many stories, Park said the one that meant the most to him involved an elderly person in the neighborhood who collects recyclable cardboard.For those elderly people who come to pick up cardboard boxes left in front of the restaurant, he wrote a notice that reads,"Please let me treat you to a meal — have a bowl of gukbap before you go."

A young owner’s romantic dream: "One good deed leads to another"

Receipts for prepaid takeaway orders from people who joined Park’s donations by paying in advance and intentionally not picking up their food / Photo by Reporter Kim Hee-sunBecause Park is very active on SNS and openly shares his donations and other activities, some people have reacted negatively.“When the complaint over the fire station coffee happened, I even thought maybe I should just stop doing all of this,” Park recalled.“But then I realized that, one way or another, someone has to do it,”
he explained, adding, "Some of the people who criticized me at first have watched me keep giving and now say, ‘He’s really sincere,’ and cheer me on. That makes me work even harder and feel a greater sense of responsibility."These days,other small-business owners who have been moved by his good deeds contact him, saying, "I’ve started giving back too,"
or asking, "I want to do what you do — how should I start?" Many people place takeaway orders as a way of "rewarding" him and joining his donations, then deliberately never come to pick up the food.Finally, Park said, "I myself started sharing after seeing someone else’s good deeds, so I believe that if someone reads about what I do in an article or sees it on YouTube, they might begin their own acts of kindness.""I believe that one good deed leads to another,so I will continue to do my best to set a good example," he added.
bng@fnnews.com Kim Hee-sun Reporter