Gangchu Chicken and Beer: Bringing Korean Karaoke to their Restaurant

Gangchu Chicken and Beer is a Korean restaurant with a karaoke room in Tampa, Florida. The name “Gangchu'' means “highly recommended” in Korean. Chicken and beer venues are a popular concept in Korea, which inspired the opening of Gangchu.

The venue's concept has evolved over time from just being a Korean restaurant and has begun to incorporate a variety of Asian street food selections. Gangchu focuses on attracting customers for both dining and their karaoke room experience in a transitional neighborhood in Tampa.

The building was originally an old gas station and car repair that they transformed into a karaoke restaurant. Gangchu is registered under Tampa Hospitality Group, who run several venues, Gangchu is the only venue that offers a karaoke room. Other than Asian street food and a karaoke room, Gangchu hosts trivia nights, has a large outside patio with different games, and has implemented different events like “Thirsty Thursdays” and “Taco Tuesdays.”

Gangchu’s karaoke room features an abstract mural painting on the ceiling created by a local artist and hexagon-shaped soundproofing panels. The room is designed with a U-shaped bench with red leather, color-changing lights in the room, and decorative instruments on the wall. In the karaoke room, there is a window that can be seen from the street, allowing passersby to see the party-like atmosphere inside.

Outside the karaoke room, there is an “On Air” sign to indicate that someone is inside. The most popular food items are shareable items like loaded fries, wings, and Bulgogi. The worst mess for them when it comes to the karaoke room is spilled drinks, which are quite easy to wipe away.

The karaoke room holds up to 12 people. Booking costs $10 per person per hour, and customers can order drinks and food in the karaoke room by using a QR code or by tapping a light switch inside the room to indicate that they need service.

The karaoke room is booked nearly every night, but they have more back-to-back bookings during the weekend's prime hours from 7-10 pm and Mondays. On Mondays, they offer a “free karaoke day” for their customers. The demographic of customers in the karaoke room tends to be on the younger side and a mix of couples and groups. The venue gets a lot of parties for special events like bachelor/ette parties, and birthday parties.

As the building was an old gas station, the decision where to place the karaoke room was made when they acquired the building. The building was already divided up in a way that the old office was a suitable size for a karaoke room, and they decided to turn it into one as it aligned well with their restaurant theme of being a Korean restaurant at the time.

Their plan was to open up the restaurant as a karaoke restaurant, but because of COVID-19 they had to postpone their karaoke room opening for 1 and a half years and did takeaway in the meantime.

Gangchu worked with an AV company that did the research and presented them with Singa as the best option, and also checked off all the boxes of a karaoke provider they were looking for. For them, the Singa system is easy to use and is well-received by both customers and staff.

Since they opened up the karaoke room, it’s been a great success for Gangchu by generating $1400 in room rental fees and $5000 in food & beverage sales in monthly earnings for the karaoke room. In general, the karaoke room is rented out for approx. 27 times in a month.

They have seen a revenue increase from drink sales in the karaoke room, with tabs ranging from up to $200 per booking. Nathan explained that all bookings for the karaoke room at Gangchu are pre-booked through a reservation site. While they do get walk-ins occasionally, the room is mostly pre-booked, and as they only have one karaoke room, customers who do walk-ins and find the room are usually willing to wait until there’s a free spot.

Customers typically come for both food and karaoke, with most booking the karaoke room also eating while they sing. For Gangchu it’s split 50/50 between dining in and takeout/delivery. And 5-10% of customers do both dining and karaoke.

Their future plans for Gangchu is to continue growing their business by introducing new menus and improving their outdoor area. There are also plans to promote the karaoke room more and attract new customers including potentially hosting a whole-house karaoke events in the future.