For three years, Kothai Republic has been a destination for the city’s most in-the-know diners. Since 2023, the mom-and-pop Inner Sunset restaurant has been serving a deliciously eclectic Korean-Thai menu with classics like bibimbap and kalbi, as well as genre-bending originals like porchetta with lilikoi jam and chicken liver mousse with mochi popovers.
But fans have just a few more weeks to experience that one-of-a-kind menu. Sung Park, the chef who runs Kothai with partner Anantachai Sanguanwong, says it will close after service Feb. 15.
“I’m angry. I’m sad. But I have no regrets,” Park said. “I think we’ve done a wonderful thing.”
The dinner offerings at Kothai Republic include tom yum soup, kimchi, and mussels. | Courtesy Sung Park/Kothai Republic
The reason for the closure is simple enough: The numbers just didn’t add up. There were nights when customers filled Kothai’s dining room, and nights when Park served fewer than 20. Media coverage would provide a bump that lasted a month or two, but then the buzz would die down. To offset the slow nights, Park slashed labor — essentially taking on every role himself, from washing dishes and doing prep work to handling the accounting and booking large parties.
The situation became untenable. “I just can’t continue to go on the way that we’ve been going,” Park said. “Yes, we could have continued to do this for years on end. But it’s just not sustainable.”
Unlike some restaurant owners who’ve reached the end of the road in San Francisco, Park remains optimistic. He’s proud of what he and Sanguanwong accomplished with Kothai Republic: They saw regular customers return every week and developed a reputation for accommodating diners with dietary restrictions.
“People wrote that their experience was more than just a restaurant, that everyone was truly taken care of,” he said. “That’s the definition of hospitality.”
Park had hardly worked in a kitchen before opening Kothai. He started his career in the front of the house at Thanh Long, the Cliff House, Boulevard, and others, then spent a few years behind the stove running a food truck called Spork and Stix. At the end of the pandemic, when the Kothai space available, he jumped at the opportunity to take on a new challenge.
But the undertaking proved more than he could handle. Still, Park, a lifelong San Franciscan with hospitality in his blood, remains committed to the city and the industry. He’s not ruling out the idea of pivoting to a new concept.
“I truly am a person who was born to be in a restaurant, through and through,” he said. “There’s just literally nothing more that I could have done.”