Tofu House Korean restaurant, closed during pandemic, reborn in south Reno

The man with a black apron and salt-and-pepper hair smiled as customers slurped bubbling-hot tofu soup and dug their chopsticks into sizzling beef bibimbap in stone pots around him on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

For Korean chef Osu Kwon, the scene at the Tofu House in south Reno was akin to a resurrection — not just of his restaurant but his passion for the business. It was also a testament to the goodwill the original Tofu House built within the community.

Kwon described the July 5 opening of his new restaurant with disbelief.

“We had about 300 guests,” he said. “I did not expect that many people to come in.”

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As someone who served 500 diners a day when he owned the original Hiroba Sushi at Skyline, Kwon is used to busy restaurants. His refreshed outlook, however, is like night and day compared to four years ago.

A month into Nevada’s mandated COVID-19 shutdown, Kwon closed the Tofu House, then on Moana Lane. At the time, Kwon’s wife was a frontline worker and the couple also had a young child.

“My wife was busy and we couldn’t send our baby to daycare so I had no choice,” Kwon said.

Once the shutdown was lifted, Reno restaurants started to resume normal operations. The Tofu House was not among them.

Osu Kwon's restaurant success and then a reckoning

Kwon moved to the United States from South Korea in 2004 to work as a chef at the Nugget hotel-casino.

Three years later, Kwon and the person who recruited him to come to the U.S. opened Rickshaw Sushi.

Kwon left Rickshaw Sushi shortly before opening Hiroba Sushi in Reno the next year. Hiroba was the first restaurant Kwon owned himself without a business partner. It was also massively successful, attracting hundreds of diners per day.

Success at Hiroba, however, would come at a price for Kwon.

After a hard-charging seven years in the restaurant business, Kwon’s body was breaking down. Kwon needed to have surgery in 2011 — the price of working long hours and standing all day long. Kwon’s wife was also going to school in San Diego at the time. Commuting back and forth from Reno while running a busy restaurant was simply unsustainable for the restaurateur.

“At that time, I actually felt like, ‘If I keep doing this, I’m going to be dead,’” Kwon said.

Kwon made the difficult choice to sell Hiroba in 2012.

Kwon would quickly jump back in the restaurant business in 2013, however, with Tomo Sushi & Grill in Carson City. Kwon would also help his brother set up Sushi 7 in northwest Reno in 2015 and also help a business partner start Hiroba Sparks in 2016.

Having earned a reputation locally for his sushi, however, Kwon wanted to open a restaurant that truly reflected his roots.

“I got a traditional Korean cuisine certification back in 1999 and I didn’t want it to become useless,” Kwon said. “Especially since not a lot of people can do Korean cuisine (in Reno).”

In 2017, Kwon opened his first dedicated Korean restaurant, the Tofu House.

Like Hiroba, the Tofu House would become one of Kwon’s most highly regarded restaurants. Boasting popular Korean fare for westerners such as bibimbap and fried chicken, plus Korean favorites like soft tofu soup and jjampong noodles, the Tofu House earned strong reviews online from patrons and the Reno Gazette Journal .

Life would take another turn for Kwon, however, after his wife gave birth. The COVID-19 pandemic followed, shaking up the entire restaurant industry.

Forced to pick between raising his child and giving up the Tofu House, the decision was obvious for Kwon. On April 2020, the original Tofu House in Reno closed.

The Tofu House serves up a comeback

Despite closing the Tofu House, Kwon did not leave the restaurant business entirely.

Kwon was still involved in three restaurants — Poke Doke and Bowls’N Go in Carson City and Sakura Sushi N Poke in Gardnerville — until last year when his partners fully took over.

While Kwon is proud of all the restaurants he helped start in the area, there was one in particular that really stood out.

“I was getting so many questions about the Tofu House,” Kwon said.

Kwon still remembers all the messages he got when he closed the original Tofu House in 2020 — so many he was not able to answer them all.

The Tofu House also has a special place in Kwon’s heart. Like Hiroba, it was a restaurant that he owned himself without a business partner. But unlike Hiroba, the Tofu House was completely focused on food from his homeland.

“Tofu House was my all time favorite,” Kwon said.

Apparently, Kwon was not alone in his opinion. When the chef reopened the restaurant in a new location at the Damonte Ranch Town Center off Damonte Ranch and Steamboat parkways, he was surprised at the number of customers who showed up.

The Friday opening got so busy that Kwon had flashbacks of all those busy restaurant shifts he worked in the past.

“That was crazy,” Kwon said. “It was actually a bit too much.”

“I thought, ‘Wait, did I make a mistake opening this restaurant again?'” Kwon said with a nervous laugh.

Traffic was steady but a lot more manageable on a recent Saturday afternoon, allowing Kwon to step out of the kitchen and greet customers in between making fresh kimchi. Kwon is also hiring and training more people, which should help during busier times, he said.

The reborn Tofu House isn’t Kwon’s only restaurant venture.

Kwon also owns the Poke N Go next door, which serves poke rice bowls. While negotiating the space for the Tofu House, Kwon was offered the space so he decided to jump on it.

The Poke N Go helps diversify his business, Kwon said. Poke restaurants typically do better in the summer while the Tofu House does really well during the winter.

Kwon smiled as another serving of red-hot tofu soup was given to a customer at a table behind him. For Kwon, having the Tofu House open again is like being reunited with a child he has not seen for a long time.

Looking back, Kwon feels he is in a much better place. It certainly helps that he isn’t juggling as many plates as before when he was helping run too many restaurants.

“It was so stressful then so (closing the Tofu House) was the best decision I could make,” Kwon said.

“But now, I’m enjoying myself, actually.”

More details: The Tofu House, 1021 Steamboat Parkway Suite 180, Reno, is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday.

This article originally appeared on Reno Gazette Journal: Tofu House Korean restaurant, closed during pandemic, reborn in south Reno