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.
Posts Tagged ‘whole foods’
Kimchi Love from LA Weekly
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
Life is Crazy Sometimes…
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
We had mentioned a while back that life had been a little nuts over here at Kimchi Headquarters. Everyone’s life is a little nuts, no? I guess we should have said it was a lotta nuts over here, but now that it’s calming down, we’ll break it down for you. It has very little to do with kimchi. Feel free to skip this post if our personal lives bore you…
Granny Choe went in for a relatively straightforward surgery last September to fix a herniated disc in her neck, but there was a complication resulting in a bout in the ICU, two urgent revision surgeries and a long recovery process. The rest of the family and I juggled care for her and Little E and Grandpa Choe (partially disabled by a stroke), Great-grandma Choe (Alzheimer’s Disease and paranoid), and Great-grandpa Choe (just really old). For a while there life felt like that riddle where you’re supposed to get a fox, a chicken, and a bag of seed across the river…
Through the whole ordeal, Granny Choe never complained or posed herself as a victim… she thanked God that she was still alive, made sure her family was taken care of (even while she was lying in a hospital bed), and told every nurses’ assistant and janitor who came through her hospital room what a great job they were doing. Granny Choe is a pretty cool lady.
Then Great-grandpa Choe passed away a few months ago… and Papa Choe (who helps run the kimchi biz) changed departments at his day job and was working long hours. But we all made it through, and there’s nothing quite like death, near-death and daily visits to the hospital/nursing home to put life into perspective. Granny Choe is mostly recovered now, but still has some pain and numbness in her left arm (this is not nearly as bad as we thought it would be when she came out of the first surgery).
Life is crazy sometimes… and when you run a small, family business, it does allow you some flexibility (nice), but the responsibilities are shared between so few people that when when one person is out, it gets really crazy (not nice). Something to consider if you are thinking about starting your own business.
Whew! Now it’s time to get back to taking over the country with our kimchi 
Aloha! Granny Choe’s kimchi now available at Whole Foods Maui
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010
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
Granny Choe’s kimchi salsa recipe
Thursday, September 9th, 2010
We are keeping busy here at Kimchi Headquarters with a few tasty updates to our site:
1) We finally added the pretty recipe photos that Patrick Bae was kind enough to take for us eons ago. We are not very computer savvy over here at Kimchi HQ and after many attempts to upload these, we broke down and had to have a programmer post these for us. Thanks, Programmer… and Patrick!
2) New summer recipe that involves no cooking (Hooray! Even though it’s been oddly cool here this summer): Granny Choe’s Kimchi Salsa recipe is super easy, but you could probably cheat and make this even easier by buying a container of premade pico de gallo and adding 2/3 cup of our chopped original / cabbage kimchi to it. Granny Choe is a major fan of blending Southwest and Asian foods, and she really loves this salsa over plain rice…
Also, coming soon: The best potsticker recipe ever featuring Granny Choe’s original / cabbage kimchi, courtesy of our friends at Loohoo’s Asian Comfort Food!
Granny Choe’s in WeHo Whole Foods
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
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…
Granny Choe’s kimchi now in Whole Foods!
Friday, August 27th, 2010
Extremely official and somewhat important good news: Granny Choe’s kimchi is now on shelves at Whole Foods!
The fine print: We are not in Whole Foods locations nationwide–We’ve only reached out to California locations so far since it’s where we’re based, and it’s the state with the greatest concentration of Whole Foods stores. And we’re only in select stores in California so far. Now that we’ve taken care of raining on our own parade…
Wooohoo! This is pretty exciting stuff for a small company like ours, and we’ve probably said it already, but we are STOKED (Also, we are hugely relieved that the product reached the stores without any major disasters.).
More good stuff: If you buy Granny Choe’s kimchi in stores not only do you get to pass on shipping costs, but you also get a lower price per jar than we can offer online. Prices may vary, but the Whole Foods stores we talked to are currently selling our product for $6.99, and a few of the stores even have it on sale since they’re just introducing it — so if any of these stores are near you, go get you some!
Here’s the current store list… it’s a work in progress, and we’ll be making additions on our store locations page as we receive updates.
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Available immediately at the following locations…
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Oakland
Whole Foods Market
230 Bay Place
Oakland, CA 94612
510.834.9800
510.834.9900 fax
8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily
Roseville
Whole Foods Market
1001 Galleria Blvd.
Roseville, CA 95678
916.781.5300
8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily
Sacramento
Whole Foods Market
4315 Arden Way
Sacramento, CA 95864
916.488.2800
8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily
San Francisco
Whole Foods Market • Noe Valley
3950 24th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
415.282.4700
8am-10pm daily
San Francisco
Whole Foods Market • Potrero Hill
450 Rhode Island St.
San Francisco, CA 94107
415.552.1155
8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily
San Francisco
Whole Foods Market • SoMa
399 4th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
415.618.0066
8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily
Santa Rosa
Whole Foods Market
1181 Yulupa Ave.
Santa Rosa, CA 95405
707.575.7915
8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily
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
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Coming soon to the following locations…
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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
Santa Monica
Whole Foods Market • Montana Avenue
1425 Montana Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90403
310.576.4707
8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily
Santa Monica
Whole Foods Market
2201 Wilshire Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90403
310.315.0662
7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily
Santa Monica
Whole Foods Market • Wilshire Blvd
500 Wilshire Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310.395.4510
7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily
Venice
Whole Foods Market
225 Lincoln Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
310.566.9480
7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily