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The restaurant industry’s rising stars rush to Yeouido IFC Mall to target office workers
May 31 2012, Seoul – Promising new restaurant brands will target office workers in Yeouido for the first time, when they open their latest concepts at the International Finance Center Mall, IFC Mall. IFC Mall is an international style shopping center opening at the end of August 2012 in Yeouido and consequently the financial hub has been getting a lot of attention lately as an emerging restaurant commercial district.
SG Dinehill, a restaurant service provider that is best well-known for ‘Butcher’s Cut’, an authentic American style steak house, ‘Blooming Garden’, a contemporary Italian restaurant, etc. has confirmed that it is planning to launch the first store of ‘Cotto’, its new Italian pizzeria, at IFC Mall. ‘Le brunchic’, a French style restaurant famous for brunches to be enjoyed in a chic way, and ‘Pho Hanoi’, a Vietnam rice noodle restaurant which is known as healthy food, are also set to open their second stores respectively.
In addition, McDonald’s will open its first store in Yeouido and enter the office commercial district in Yeouido for busy office workers who want to grab a quick meal. IFC Mall expects that the first McDonald’s Yeouido branch will attract customers visiting Yeouido for a weekend outing as well as office workers to IFC Mall.
Even though Yeouido is one of three major business districts including the CBD and the GBD, Yeouido has lacked commercial infrastructure which means tremendous potential to be developed as the next emerging commercial area. In the restaurant industry operators are fiercely competing to open their restaurants at prime office buildings, mainly located in business districts in order to please office workers’ sophisticated tastes and satisfy their needs ranging including a quick lunch, business meeting and company outing. IFC Mall has already secured the settled population of approximately 372,000 in total including IFC Seoul’s 25,000 employees and other office workers in Yeouido as its important consumer targets. Furthermore, IFC Mall directly connects to the Yeouido Subway Station where subway lines 5 and 9 intersect with a daily floating population of 350,000 million people.
William F. Freeman, Executive Managing Director of IFC Seoul, said “We are clearly seeing the leaders in the restaurant industry identify the opportunity that the commercial district of Yeouido presents. IFC Mall in Yeouido is providing a new dining destination and ‘cultural hub’ to the increasingly sophisticated customer who is familiar with the fashionable restaurants concentrated in Sinsa-dong, Itawon(Hannam-dong) and Cheongdam-dong.”
Yeong-sik Park, Executive Vice President of SG Dinehill leading an upscale dining culture in the domestic restaurant industry, said “Considering the location characteristics of Yeouido where there are many customers who earn relatively high incomes, enjoy diverse food cultures and want to set the trends we will launch ‘Cotto’ at IFC Mall. When opening an Italian restaurant, the location matters most like a café and the location of IFC Mall is very suitable within the commercial district of Yeouido.”
The food and beverage stores on the 3rd basement floor of IFC Mall will provide a premium food court and high quality restaurants with various menus and price ranges. These include ‘Rak’ n Wok’, an American-style Chinese restaurant that suits young customer’s tastes, ‘Yasedaya’, a premium Japanese BBQ restaurant, ‘On the border’, an authentic Mexican restaurant, ‘Honest Kitchen’, an organic Asian fusion restaurant, and more.
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