Cup Bop

[storewanderer]

Chain sells "Korean BBQ in a Cup." Tried this chain based on some real high Google Review Scores (appears they were offering people 2 free pot stickers for positive reviews...).

Utah chain.

Anyway, walked in, Chipotle type of set up. Meats were in metal trays in the steamtable and not at all what I expected to see for Korean BBQ. Ordered the mixed cup with some chicken/beef and then it comes with rice, noodles, and some cabbage. At the end of the line they put a sauce on top with various spice level options.

Paid and took the cup out and started picking off some meat and digging out some rice from the bottom. Wasn't real excited with any of it, meat had flavor but did not even taste like BBQ. The sauces on top were sort of overwhelming individual chunks of meat. Returned to the cup about 30 minutes later and decided to mix everything together and see what would happen. That was the trick. Now this thing tasted good, really good. Not sure it tasted like Korean BBQ, but it tasted good.

[buckguy]

It sounds like a close relative of Bibbibop which bought Shophouse locations from Chipotle and watered down the food further: https://bibibop.com/. Shophouse was a SE Asian version of Chipotle---really good initially and then toned down a bit, but not bad after that.

Bibbibop is owned by doc at Ohio State who is a friend of a colleague.

[Brian Lutz]

The concept seems similar to one called Kigo Kitchen that appears to have been owned by Seattle Restaurateur Ethan Stowell which once had a handful in locations in the Central Business District of Seattle, but never really got off the ground and seems to have either been shut down by COVID or a bit before that. I tried it once and found it rather average and overpriced (par for the course in Downtown Seattle.) It appears that at some point they also added Banh Mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) to the menu as well, but there's plenty of places in Seattle's International District to get those. There's actually one location with a bar still showing on Google Maps as "Temporarily Closed" but I have no idea if they're ever going to reopen. They also still appear to have one random location at Northeastern University in Boston but the reviews are mediocre at best.

As for CupBop, in the Salt Lake Valley they have billboards reading "Get your butt to CupBop" that tell you nothing about the product, and probably do more to annoy people than to get them to actually visit. The store locator on their website wasn't working when I tried it, but they claim to have locations in six states (Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma) and over 100 locations in Indonesia for some odd reason. It's one of those weird phenomena where every once in a while you'll run into some place that just randomly has foreign locations. Sahara Pizza is a small pizza chain with 15 locations mostly in smaller Western Washington cities, 2 locations in Oregon, a couple in Idaho... And 2 locations in Bolivia.