El Camino Mongolian BBQ, a cult favorite Santa Clara restaurant known for its customizable bowl meals, crunchy egg rolls and fried rice, announced it will be closing permanently on Dec. 15, citing challenges related to the pandemic.
But the news means the longtime owners, John and Sunny Seo, will have to leave the country.
“We have a different plan moving forward,” owner John Seo wrote in a statement on the restaurant’s website on Friday. “Sunny and I will be going back to Korea, and we hope to spend our life helping those who need it the most. We will miss our life in this beautiful town in San Jose, and we will miss everyone who has helped and supported the restaurant.”
The buffet-style barbecue spot on El Camino Real originally opened in 1993 and changed hands twice before Seo took over in January 2005, the Silicon Valley Voice reported last year.
Before he became a restaurateur, Seo obtained a Ph.D. in environmental engineering and founded a company, eventually selling his business in 2003 and bringing his family to the U.S. by way of South Korea, he told the Silicon Valley Business Journal last year. He found a job as a visiting professor at San Jose State University, but when the two-year gig came to an end, he and his wife needed to find a way to legally stay in the country.
They acquired an E-2 visa, which allowed them to remain in the U.S. if they bought at least 50% of a business that created jobs for 10 or more U.S. citizens, according to the Business Journal.
Recounting his first day of business to the Silicon Valley Voice, Seo said he had just two customers, but was so pleased he decided to take a photo of them. Now, over 7,000 photos of his grinning clientele have become a defining feature of the restaurant, completely covering the walls.
Thousands of photos of customers line the walls of the restaurant.
Josephine D./Yelp
But even as the popularity of the business grew, it didn’t guarantee their citizenship. Later, as the pandemic persisted, patronage dwindled down to just “10 to 15 percent” of what it once was, Seo told the Silicon Valley Voice. And though the restaurant qualified for a $140,000 PPP loan, they could not obtain additional funding because of his visa status, he told the Business Journal.
His daughter, Ran Seo, spearheaded a GoFundMe campaign that raised nearly $36,000 — but it wasn’t enough. Now, as her parents prepare to return to South Korea, they’re looking for someone who will carry on the business in some iteration. In the statement, Seo asked the public to contact them if they are interested in purchasing recipes, restaurant equipment or the decorations they’ve collected over the years.
“We hope someone could continue our restaurant’s legacy somewhere,” wrote Seo.
They can be reached at embbq@elcaminomongolianbbq.com.
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