After 38 Years, A Beloved “Pantry” Staple Closes Shop

Tagan Engel, Ken Suzuki, Yoon-Ock Kim, Caroline Smith and Christine Kim. Lucy Gellman Photo.

If you saw Yoon-Ock Kim make her bibimbap even once, you knew it was a culinary ballet. Maybe it was the vegetables, a mix of mushrooms, zucchini, bellflower root, and gem-colored lettuce that she grew in her backyard. Or the homemade gochujang, fermented for 40 days and spooned into a corner of the bowl. Or the egg, its edges crisped and lacy by the time they settled on a steaming bed of rice. 

Mostly, it was that it tasted like home.

After 38 years between Orange Street and Whitney Avenue, Mrs. Kim is closing up her shop, The Oriental Pantry, to spend more time with her three children and three young grandchildren. Sunday afternoon, over 100 customers flooded the store to bid her farewell, shaking off the rain to find community in the space one last time. Between them, attendees ranged from under a year old to over 80, in a testament to the extended family she has built around food.

“I feel kind of sad, because I will miss all of my customers. My customers are the best people in the world,” she said Sunday, as her youngest grandson toddled past a case still stocked with kimchi, seaweed salad, and homemade ssamjang. “I’m very proud to be a member of this community.”  

Tagan Engel Photo. 

In Kim’s nearly four decades in East Rock, Oriental Pantry has become a home and a haven for hundreds, if not thousands, of New Haveners. They include current and former university students, longtime East Rock residents for whom she is a fixture of the neighborhood, and New Haveners who grew up with her in their lives, then returned to shop and eat at her store with their own children. 

In part, that is because of her own search to find and cultivate a sense of place in the city. In 1978, she and her husband, Kapheon, moved to New Haven from South Korea so that he could pursue his graduate studies at Yale. For Kim, who grew up in Busan and then spent time in Incheon and Seoul, it was a completely new landscape. 

Initially, she studied at Southern Connecticut State University, then worked at Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library and pulled another shift focused on her three young children at home. As she and her growing family built a life in New Haven, she knew something was missing. 

“It was very different then,” she told the Arts Paper in March 2021, after a late-night burglary at the shop left her scrambling to pay rent, and the community stepped in to help. In the late 1970s, New Haven only had one small, Chinese-owned market, and Kim struggled to find ingredients for her Korean cooking. Around 1985, she was thrilled when a friend started a Korean grocer on 374 Whitney Avenue, and soon jumped onboard to help. The Oriental Pantry was born.

Megan Baker Photo.

Even then, Kim never intended to own or run a market full time. Then a few years into the business, her friend announced that she was returning to Korea, and asked if she would take over. Kim, acting on a need she saw in the community, said yes and left her university job. Sunday, she was quick to say that she did not do it alone: her mother, who joined the family in the U.S., originally helped her in the Whitney Avenue location.

Together, they served up both Korean and Japanese food for years, building out an inventory for customers who were hard-pressed to find Asian ingredients anywhere else. Her kids, two of whom were there Sunday, spent years helping out at the store. 

Under Kim’s ownership, Oriental Pantry became both a hub for hard-to-find ingredients and an intentional, generations-deep community. In addition to freezer cases of fresh mandu, garnet-colored jars of radish and cabbage kimchi, and steaming dishes of bibimbap and japchae, Kim made space for the flavors of Japan, Thailand, China, and India. 

It was, for years, the only place in the city where you could find jars of peppery jalfrezi, vindaloo, and bright chili garlic sauce alongside canned spam, at least five different kinds of udon noodles, sweet pastel-toned mochi, and neat bags of Thai basil, oregano, cumin, and curry. Onions, orange and purple yams, red lentils and crisp heads of Napa cabbage often waited nearby, just in case a customer had finished their shopping for the day, and forgotten that one last ingredient. 

Oriental Pantry in March 2021, after a break in. Lucy Gellman File Photo.

Over time, she added delicate sake cups and tea sets, artisanal chopsticks, cookware, facial moisturizers, and over a dozen kinds of candy for her tiniest patrons. On ingredients across the store, she wrote delicate notes in English and sometimes Hangul, with directions on how to use products from seaweed paste and salty black bean chunjang to soba noodles stacked neatly on a shelf by the back door.  

Along the way, she built a fan base thousands of people deep, some of whom now live halfway across the world. They range from author Diane Joy Charney, who waved a sweet, smiling hello from behind a purple medical mask Sunday, to recent Yale grads Kayley Estoesta and Lauren Kim, who helped her get online in 2021, during the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sunday, Estoesta drove from New York to Connecticut to make the goodbye party.

“It feels sad that an institution in the neighborhood that has been here for so long is transitioning,” she said.. “But at the same time, I’m excited for her.”  

Sunday, longtime customer Ken Suzuki remembered the Whitney Avenue spaces as a sort of sanctuary, where he could find Japanese and pan-Asian staple ingredients that weren’t available anywhere else in the city. Born and raised in Hawaii, Suzuki moved to New Haven in 1973. A decade later, he was delighted to find someone who both stocked and cooked Korean and Japanese ingredients, and was always ready to share her knowledge with her customers. 

“This is kind of a haven for us,” he said Sunday, surrounded by trays of kimbap, delicate matcha cupcakes and baskets of crunchy, tempura-battered seaweed snacks. When Kim moved the business to 486 Orange St. in 2004, Suzuki was one of hundreds of customers who followed her. His two sons, now in their 20s, would sit outside the store on his errands, knowing that candy from Mrs. Kim was in their near future. 

“Even as busy as she is, she always has time for her customers,” he said. Kim became an expert culinary advisor to him three years ago, when Covid-19 meant that Suzuki was spending more time at home, and could cook while working remotely. “She really made this place her own.”

Oriental Pantry in March 2021, after a break in. Lucy Gellman File Photo.

Christine Kim, who moved to New Haven as a student in the 1990s, also found Oriental Pantry when it was still on Whitney Avenue. At the time, “it was the only place I knew I could buy kimchi and get food from home,” she said. What started as a quest for the right ingredients soon became a deep love for the space and its gentle, effusively warm owner. It was a comfort “just knowing that she was here,” she remembered. 

Sunday, she flowed between English and Korean, eagerly asking questions before the party had ended, and the reality of closure fully set in for all attendees. 

“She was always so proud of who she was and so welcoming for so many in the community,” Kim said. “Not diluting her recipes. Not diluting who she was.” 

The two remained close in the decades since, as Kim built a life and a family in New Haven. When she and her husband, Doug Kysar, were in the early stages of dating, he went to the shop to get culinary consultation before making a meal for her. After her children were born, they became regulars in the Orange Street shop, a story that was familiar turf for many parents Sunday. “It’s like almost getting an auntie,” Kim said. 

Kim and her husband, Kapheon. Lucy Gellman Photo.

The store also fostered a sense of family, Kim said. When a burglary rocked Oriental Pantry in March 2021, “I felt like my mom was attacked,” she remembered. When she heard that the store was closing, she worked with food justice advocate Tagan Engel and Collab Co-Founder Caroline Smith to organize Sunday’s festivities.   

Standing nearby, Smith remembered her own discovery of Oriental Pantry during her sophomore year of college at Yale, when she was mentoring students at New Haven Academy next door. When she stepped inside the Orange Street shop, she discovered dishes that reminded her instantly of her home. A few years ago, she said, she was excited to introduce her mom—also Mrs. Kim—to the woman who cared so deeply for every customer that walked through the door.  

“I think it contributed to building a home here,” she said, adding that it is one of the few places in the city where she does a traditional Korean bow. When she moved to East Rock a few years ago, “it was a huge part of what it was to be in the neighborhood.”

“The bibimbap is the best $10 that you can spend in the entire city,” she continued, describing it as one of New Haven’s most visually arresting dishes. “The egg, it’s like a little slice of sunshine.”   

Robert Lim. Lucy Gellman Photo.

Other attendees called the moment bittersweet. When he and his partner moved to the town of Orange 13 years ago, Robert Lim came to The Oriental Pantry on the hunt for Korean ingredients. It was a different time, he said: pantry staples that may now be accessible online or at grocery stores were still difficult to find. New Haven’s other Asian markets had just started to enter the fore.

What kept him coming back was the food—the sense that it was home cooking, never glammed up or altered as it might be in a restaurant. He had high praise for Mrs. Kim’s japchae, the preparation for which “takes a very long time,” and for the homemade pork, kimchi, and vegetable mandu, or dumplings.

When he and his partner heard the store was closing, they swung by last week to pick up five bags of frozen mandu to sustain their household for a little while.   

While he will miss the space, “I’m glad that she’s able to retire and continue with her life,” he said. 

The Kims with their eldest son, Charles, and his kids Peter and Elizabeth.

Even as the crowd dwindled, Mrs. Kim was in her element, checking in with every person who walked through the door. Every so often, her grandchildren Elizabeth and Peter ran into her arms, and she paused to run a hand along their shoulders, or let them sink into the warmth of her torso. The youngest, just a baby, ambled around the shop on tiny legs, spreading his small fingers on a display case by the register.

Her eldest son Charles, who grew up helping out around the Whitney Avenue store, watched the tableau unfold with a tender, soft sparkle in his eyes. During his childhood, Oriental Pantry was part of his and his siblings’ life, a constant presence that “taught us responsibility,” he said. He still remembers when his mother moved the shop from Whitney Avenue to Orange Street. For years, he wasn’t sure she’d ever retire.

“Now that it’s here, it’s surreal,” he said. “She’s pretty amazing and her work ethic—woah. This is really her child, you know? It’s one of her children. She’s dedicated her life to it.” 

Still, he said, he’s excited for her to spend more time with his kids, in whom she has already instilled a love for Korean culture and cooking. Elizabeth, who is 7, has taken an interest in gardening after growing tomatoes with her grandmother in their home garden in Orange. Each Wednesday, they spend the evening together, a tradition he hopes will become more frequent now that she is stepping into retirement. 

“He’s my first baby,” Kim said, embracing him. “I should have spent more time with him.” 

Tagan Engel and Yoon-Ock Kim.

Engel, who helped coordinate Sunday’s party, remembered years spent in The Oriental Pantry, making discoveries that later set her on the path to culinary artistry. When she was 14, the store was the first place she ever tried a red bean bun. Years later, when she was working for CitySeed, she made sure to include Kim’s recipes in a city-wide cookbook. She now comes with her kids, the youngest of whom is a student at New Haven Academy. 

“May all of this love and joy stay with you for all those years to come,” Engel said during a brief pause for speeches. Before the evening was over, Kim received a portrait of the storefront from East Rock-based artist Jisu Sheen, as well as a digital rendering from the city’s Economic Development Administration, done by the artist Raheem Nelson. 

Sunday, Kim said that her first plan for retirement is to maximize time with her children and grandchildren. When she was running the store, “I felt that I couldn’t take more time with my children,” she said. “Now I have the time, but they’re all grown up.” She is also considering volunteering at the Case Memorial Library in Orange or the New Haven Free Public Library, where she’d like to offer help in the children’s section. She’s also thinking about writing a Korean cookbook. 

Mrs. Kim and Kayley Estoesta. Lucy Gellman Photo.

The space, meanwhile, will not be empty for long. New Havener and veteran chef Humberto Espinal will be taking over 486 Orange St. this spring with a new business called Sabor Sajoma Kitchen and and Market. The name pairs the Spanish for flavor (Sabor) with Espinal’s shorthand for his wife’s hometown, San Jose de las Matas in the Dominican Republic. In an homage to Mrs. Kim, the market will keep its Asian ingredients. 

“Our mission is to provide tasty food in a family-friendly environment with our one-to-one interaction with customers,” he wrote on a release that was available Sunday. “As a chef over the years, I have learned about different cultures and their gastronomy, therefore my family has also been exposed. This is what we would like to bring to the community.”

“To honor Mrs. Kim’s legendary years at The Oriental Pantry we will keep offering Asian products in our market along with local and vegetarian options,” he added. “Mrs. Kim’s wise words when we walked through the door were ‘Opportunity is like a bald-headed man with only one patch of hair right in front. You better grab that hair, grasp the opportunity while it’s confronting you, else you’ll be grasping a slick bald head.’ And that’s exactly what we are doing.”