Mexican Seoul Taco Bar in East London

Aim

We've found a home and we need your help to bring it to life!

WHO WE ARE

Mexican Seoul is a Korean-Mexican feel-good street food brand launched during lockdown. The past few years, we've been touring festivals, markets and events, and we managed to win 15 awards at Wing Fest. Everyone who tries our food always asks where our permanent spot is. And we always reply, "coming soon". Well, soon has finally come...

THE DREAM

After scouring London for months in search of our forever home, we're super excited to have finally found The One. Located on the corner of Victoria Park, East London, this space is the perfect location for our first permanent Taco Bar, where we can sling our award-winning food five days a week. 

The Taco Bar will feature:

• Small plate Mexican-Korean fusion dishes. We'll be introducing a number of new dishes inspired by our recent research travels. And, of course, all your favourite Mexican Seoul classics and our award-winning dishes will be served, too. 
• Outdoor seating for relaxing and catching up with friends while enjoying food and cocktails in the sun.
• We'll be collaborating with the legendary East London Liquor Company to provide our own signature cocktails. Think Mezcal Negronis, Margaritas, Pisco Sours – the perfect sidekicks for our food.
• Chimaek is a Korean word that literally means the pairing of fried chicken and beer, so it's only fitting that we have some amazing local beer on offer. We're buzzing to be collaborating with some of London's best local breweries.
• Late Night Music. Not only will we be providing the perfect soundtrack for your dining experience, but we'll also be hosting DJs and live music on the weekend.

OUR STORY

After getting furloughed from our jobs in 2020, we decided to turn a negative into a positive and spent the next six months refining our home recipes, while also working on branding.

Soon, we were ready to bring our dishes to the public and began trading at a market in Brick Lane – however, this also coincided with the return to our day jobs. We worked two jobs solidly for a whole year, preparing food in the evenings and trading at weekends, before returning to our 9-5 the next week.

TURNING POINT

Six months into trading, we were visited by the Director of the world's largest chicken wing competition, Wing Fest. We'd been going to Wing Fest as a customer since 2016 and never in our wildest dreams thought we'd ever be competing. So we couldn't believe it when we took home three awards in our debut year – we were so overwhelmed that we quit our day jobs right there on stage as we received the awards.

Since then, we've thrown ourselves at every opportunity we can. We've traded at some of the UK's best festivals including Glastonbury, Big Feastival, Camp Bestival and Secret Garden Party, and we went on to pick up 12 awards during our first Wing Fest tour. It's not always been easy, but we truly love what we do, and we're still blown away by the support we've received throughout our journey.

WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP

• A huge part of the Crowdfunder will go towards acquiring and installing all the kitchen equipment needed to chef up our food.
• We need to replace and extend the existing bar area and provide bar seating, so you can try local craft beer, signature cocktails and handpicked wines.
• Summer is fast approaching and we want to provide enough outdoor seating for you to all enjoy the sunshine while feasting on our food and cocktails. (Here's a pic of the outside area in case you need any convincing.)

A HOME FOR THE GANG

A play on the Korean word for red pepper paste, we refer to our loyal community of customers as the Gochu-Gang. In a short amount of time, we've managed to build up an amazing following of repeat customers, and we can't wait to create a permanent space for us all. The bar will be the ideal hang out for everyone we've met on our journey, as well as new customers and the growing Gochu-Gang. 

This project successfully funded on 9th June 2023