K-pop shop in SF helps revive Sunset District economy

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — The only K-pop shop in San Francisco is blooming in the city’s Sunset neighborhood. SarangHello is owned by three best friends and K-pop fans themselves.

Run by Kevin Teng, Chesca Rueda, and Pip Reyes, the store opened as a pop-up in 2020. In three years, the store has grown tremendously. SarangHello is now located in a brick-and-mortar store on 31st and Taraval.

“Sarang” means love in Korean, and the owners not only want their customers to feel the love but also the Bay Area.

Their goal is to be there for the Bay Area and to provide a space for K-pop fans to meet and gather. They have done just that. The store and its owners fully embody the word “Sarang.”

In a sit-down interview with KRON4, Rueda said, “We wanted to share our hospitality and passion for KPOP. The amazing thing about K-pop is that it is so wholesome and so joyful.”

“We knew there was a market, but we never expected it to blow up like this,” Teng added.

“Yeah it’s very surreal the amount of love we get from the community,” Rueda said.

“It fuels us to wake up and work really hard,” Teng said.

Now SarangHello is approaching its fourth anniversary in May. The store is getting a lot of attention after San Francisco Mayor London Breed posted about it on X, calling it a “success story.”

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“SarangHello has played a major role in helping boost the recovery of the Sunset/Parkside neighborhood, which is seeing an 8% increase in sales tax revenue since the pandemic,” Breed said.

Since opening, the store’s revenue has increased by 60% each year, according to Teng. SarangHello is now the largest K-pop store with a physical storefront in Northern California, the business said on its Instagram.

When asked what’s contributing to the store’s profit Teng said, “We are increasing collaborative events within the Bay Area, promoting new comebacks of groups, we have exclusives you can only find in the store, and we’ve had five fan signs events with K-pop artists in store.”

During fan signs, the staff clears out the space so fans of K-pop groups can come and meet the idols.

“Fan signing events are usually only in Korea, so it means a lot to us. The companies in Korea recognize that we are a store to work with. It’s put us on the map even in Korea,” Teng said.

“It’s a dream come true for us. When we started as K-pop fans we never imagined actual idols would come to our store,” Rueda said.

Growing up, Rueda and Teng said K-Pop was a niche interest, so not many people were comfortable talking about it in public.

“Only recently when it became more mainstream have people become more open about it,” Teng added. “We all started out with Blackpink and BTS.”

The store started as an idea after Rueda went and saw boy band BTS perform.

She was so excited after seeing them, but they all realized there was no spot in San Francisco to buy K-pop albums.

“Honestly, BTS is the reason we opened up,” Rueda said.

Their new dream was put on pause when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. At the end of 2020 when restrictions started to ease, the trio were finally able to open their first location.

It was “in a little closet,” Teng said. “The pop-up was so small we had to limit the store to two people at a time.

Due to collaborating with Bay Area boba shops, and creating an online presence the new pop-up was in high demand.  In the first couple of months, they had a two-to-three-hour line for customers to buy albums.

“The community wanted more and they let us know,” Teng said. “That’s when we started looking for a permanent location.”

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Since then they have moved locations twice and are now in a big space that used to be a Benjamin Moore paint shop.

They renovated the building using Korean influences like coffee shops, photo booths, and even Urban Outfitters to create their space on Taraval Street.

“We wanted to bring a taste of Seoul to the Bay Area,” Rueda said.

For example, their Life 4 Cuts Photo Booth, which was brought straight from Korea. In the photo booth, you can take pictures with friends or even with idols like Jisoo from Blackpink.

“We wanted to create a safe space for K-pop fans where they can express their love for groups and idols,” Rueda said.

Inside the store, they have tables where fans can unbox albums and merch that they buy. “We want to share in the joy with our customers when they first open the albums,” Rueda said.

On a daily basis, you’ll find lots of customers in the store including both new customers and loyal Bay Area fans that have been following SarangHello since it first opened up.

The store is now looking at how they can keep growing in San Francisco. It will be hosting new events including trading photo cards. On January 27 and 28, SarangHello will be hosting an SM trading card event. This means groups like Red Velvet, NCT, and EXO will be available to trade.

SarangHello will have three more events in February for groups like Blackpink, BTS, NewJeans, TWICE, ENHYPEN, TXT, SEVENTEEN and LE SSERAFIM who will be featured in the Coachella Music Festival in April.

“K-pop is very event-driven, so that’s what we’re focusing on going into 2024,” Teng said.

To celebrate the Lunar New Year, SarangHello will be giving out red envelopes for any in-store purchase. The envelopes contain official photo cards from various K-pop groups.

Fun fact about Saranghello: the store is credited for Billboards in America and Hanteo Charts in Korea.

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“This is important because you are officially supporting the artists, we are one of the only K-pop album stores that does this,” Rueda said.  “So when you buy from us you’re helping them to win awards and recognition.”

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