THE defunct Redds will be converted into a Korean barbecue restaurant by the management team at Barrack Street’s Arirang Restaurant.
And, if all goes well, there could be more Arirang restaurants in WA and across Australia according to Arirang manager and director of the soon to be established Arirang Subiaco Birtan Erkut.
“We looked at Fremantle [to possibly open a restaurant] but nothing jumped out at us. Maybe we haven’t looked hard enough but we will eventually open in Freo,” he said.
“After Fremantle we would probably open in Mt Lawley and we would cap it at four restaurants in the metro area.
“We see the big picture is to sell off a portion of the business to allow us to go over east and start this over there. We have people from over there who visit our restaurant begging us to open something.
“It’s quite interesting because normally Melbourne and Sydney are ahead of us in terms of dining and here we have them wanting us to come over and open this style of restaurant.”
Mr Erkut will visit Korea next week to acquire new barbecue tables for the Subiaco site, which he anticipated opening by the end of October.
He said while the barbecue tables were expensive to operate there was a good market for the theatrical cooking style.
“It is costly to run. It works by using barbecue coals and its like fuel, it’s costly, but it is the hip thing and it is funky at the moment,” Mr Erkut said.
He said there would be some radical changes to the Redds site.
“There are some walls to come down. Behind the bar area is a private room and we’re knocking the bar down to create a bigger room without turning it into a Sizzler or anything like that,” Mr Erkut said.
He said he believed Subiaco was over supplied by Italian-style restaurants and something a little different would prove successful.
“I was at Subiaco and looked around and everything is so Mediterranean and Italian,” Mr Erkut said.
“There’s Chutney Mary’s which is relatively new and they do quite well from what I hear so we are going to have a crack at it.”