Hey all, great news! Granny Choe’s Kimchi Co. has just officially won a Best of LA 2012 award from LA Weekly for BEST KIMCHI. Woohoo!
We celebrate our little company’s 4th birthday next month, and we are so honored that, well, that we’ve been noticed at all. Thank you to all our friends and fans who have been so generous with support and encouragement. We love this!
We wholeheartedly believe that white kimchi doesn’t get the love that it deserves. It may not be spicy, but it sure is stinky and delicious. Thank you to the fermentation fiends at Draft magazine for including Granny Choe’s baek / mild white kimchi in your Sept/Oct issue! In their words, “This spiceless version’s anything but tame: Ginger and garlic, a lactic tang and distinct bubbles make each bite zippy.”
Thank you to everyone who voted for us in the Mission: Small Business program by Chase Bank- we reached the required 250 votes on the very last day, with a few hours to spare, thanks to the help of some enthusiastic friends and kimchifans! Now that we’re in, we wait until September 15th to hear which small business have been chosen. Yes, it’s a long shot, since there are thousands of small business vying for just 12 grants, but our application is pretty strong, and we’re pleased that it will at least be considered.
Thank you again! We consider it a small victory just to have made it into the running (hence the photo of tiny trophies).
LA Weekly says Granny Choe’s Kimchi “is the best store-bought kimchi we’ve ever tasted.” Many thanks to them for the kind words and…. woohoo!
Read the full review here.
Good news for our local friends: Granny Choe’s kimchi has just hit the shelves at 9 more Southern California Whole Foods locations, so go get your kimchi on! Typically you can find us in the dairy section near the pickles, but occasionally we are in the raw case or near produce… and sometimes, we can’t even find our stuff, so don’t be afraid to ask the nice Whole Foods team members to point you in the right direction.
PS: Posing by our product on shelves in the photo above is Little E, the smallest kimchimonger at kimchi headquarters. We don’t know why she looks so angry. Maybe because she can’t reach Granny Choe’s kimchi.
Brentwood
Whole Foods Market • Brentwood
11737 San Vicente Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90049
310.826.4433
7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily
Los Angeles
Whole Foods Market • Fairfax
6350 West 3rd St,
Los Angeles, CA 90036
323.964.6800
7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. daily
Encinitas
Whole Foods Market
687 S. Coast Highway 101
Encinitas, CA 92024
760.274.1580
7:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily
Laguna Beach
Whole Foods Market
283 Broadway St.,
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
949.376.7888
7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily
Los Angeles
Whole Foods Market • West Los Angeles
11666 National Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90064
310.996.8840
310.996.9510 fax
7am – 10pm seven days a week.
Pasadena
Whole Foods Market
3751 E. Foothill Blvd,
Pasadena, CA 91107
626.351.5994
7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily
Santa Barbara
Whole Foods Market
3761 State Street,
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
805-837-6959
8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily
Sherman Oaks
Whole Foods Market • Sherman Oaks West
4520 N. Sepulveda Blvd,
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
818.382.3700
7am to 10pm Monday to Friday
8am to 10pm Saturday and Sunday
West Hollywood
Whole Foods Market
7871 Santa Monica Blvd,
West Hollywood, CA 90046
323.848.4200
7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. daily
Happy Halloween, kimchifans! Here’s a little treat for you… a coupon code usually only available to our regular customers good for $2.00 off every purchase from Granny Choe’s online kimchi shop through the end of the year- Just enter HOTSTUFF1211 at checkout. Enjoy!
We love this picture above. It’s a guy dressed as Kogi BBQ truck (known for their delicious Korean/Mexican fusion foods like kimchi quesdillas) at last year’s uberfabulous West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval.
Speaking of West Hollywood… we weren’t on the shelves for a while at the West Hollywood Whole Foods Market, but they’re bringing us back there, and to a handful of new Southern California locations including Santa Barbara and Sherman Oaks, so keep an eye on our store list.
Hey LA Kimchifans!
One of our customers just informed us that Granny Choe’s kimchi is not yet available at the Santa Monica Whole Foods Market as we had previously reported (booo). Sorry for any confusion!
Goods news: Granny Choe’s kimchi has hit the shelves at the Whole Foods Market in Venice, and we just called to confirm that it is in stock, so get it while it’s hot (hardee har har).
Venice
Whole Foods Market
225 Lincoln Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
310.566.9480
7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily
Granny Choe’s kimchi is now available at nearly 30 retail locations. Click here for our complete list of stores.
Cheers,
Granny Choe, Mama Choe & Co.
Happy birthday to Granny Choe’s Kimchi Co… As of this week we’ve been in business for 2 years (already!), and we are so grateful that nothing disastrous has happened! We always hear that the first two years are the toughest, so it should be smooth sailing from here, right? Going back through our blog archives, these were Mama Choe’s thoughts on the eve of our online store opening 2 years ago:
“As we prepare to launch, I find myself alternating between “giddy with excitement” and “frozen in terror”. Perhaps those of us with chihauhua-like dispositions should be more wary of high-risk games like entrepreneurship.”
It’s been a wild ride (more on this at another time) and we’re glad that we could share it with you. We’d like to thank you for your support and offer you 15% off your entire order on GrannyChoe.com through the end of the month. Just use coupon code BIRTHDAY2 at checkout.
PS: If you are ordering Christmas gifts, please place your order by Wednesday (Dec. 15th) to guarantee that your shipment arrives before the holiday.
The good news just keeps on coming! Granny Choe’s kimchi is available at the new Whole Foods Market location on Maui. With its ethnically diverse population (including a whole lot of Asians), kimchi is notoriously popular in Hawaii, and we are happy to provide them with our all-natural, all-delicious variety. It is particularly exciting news for us because Auntie Choe lives on Maui and has been spreading the Granny Choe’s kimchi gospel for as long as we’ve been in business. The handsome, young local pretending to hold up the sign in the photo above is Nephew Choe.
In case you are lucky enough to live on (or be visiting) this beautiful island, you can find Granny Choe’s kimchi here on the shelf right above the Veganaise 
We headed over to the Whole Foods Market on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood last week to see Granny Choe’s kimchi on shelves at our first Southern California store location. Back in the day, Mama Choe’s first work internship was just down the street, at the West Hollywood Quixote Studios building, so it was also a fun trip down memory lane. Since then, they’ve put up a huge Target shopping center and done some other renovations, but the area was cute as ever and Whole Foods did not disappoint.
Whole Foods prides themselves on not only offering a great selection of products, but also on offering a shopping experience, so pretty much any Whole Foods you walk into will always be very tidy and well-stocked. But this Whole Foods store is immaculate–soaring ceilings, delicious aromas, spacious aisles, a dining patio, artwork on display, and a produce department to die for. The customers were just as pretty as the store itself (hip 20- and 30-somethings who work in the entertainment industry, no doubt).Our old roommate just reminded us that he spotted Jake Gyllenhall shopping here a while back. We realized (and think it’s hilarious) that in the picture above that we snapped on our way in, there’s a Prius… and a BMW… and a young woman in workout clothes. Way to represent!
It was verrry exciting to find our own product on the shelves for the first time, especially at such a great location. Here we are, up on the top shelf between the Chick Pea Miso and the Raw Tahini. Can’t wait till it’s available in our local store…
