Founder / The recipe
Hyon S. Cha
Hyon founded Hae Woon Dae in Atlanta in 1989. For decades, her marinades and charcoal-grill cooking made the family restaurant a Korean barbecue institution.
01 / Our story
One family. One fire. One Kalbi.
Hae Woon Dae opened in Atlanta in 1989. The restaurant’s signature family recipe is now the foundation for a Korean barbecue sauce brand built to travel.
Co-founder / The vision
John Maikke
Hyon’s brother John is helping turn that restaurant-proven recipe and family legacy into a national Korean barbecue sauce brand. He secured the Kalbi trademark and the Kalbi.com and KoreanBarbecue.com names to give that vision a home built for a wider audience.
“Kalbi is Korean barbecue. Korean barbecue is Kalbi.”
1989 / Atlanta, Georgia
A restaurant legacy, made for what comes next.
Atlanta is where the story began. Hae Woon Dae built its reputation around real charcoal grilling, short ribs prepared daily, house-made kimchi, morning-made banchan, and family marinades perfected by Hyon.
Across more than three decades, the restaurant earned 32+ awards and media recognitions and became part of Buford Highway’s cultural history. The Kalbi bottle carries that same point of view forward: a flavor guests returned for, now made to travel beyond the restaurant.