"After selling the dining corporations, I am taking on a second act in management with a space business."
Rather than resting on a single success, there is a business leader who designed the next stage and set out to start up again. It is CEO Kim Chi-heon (48) of Yellowground, who founded the dining brand "Hobak Family" and grew it for 14 years. After successfully concluding the first act in dining, Kim began a second act in management on a new stage called "space business."
Kim founded Hobak Family in 2009 on his own and built about 20 dining brands, including Hanwadam and Hobak Restaurant. In 2023, he sold the company to LIG Group, closing a chapter in dining management. In Oct. of last year, he launched real estate development corporations Yellowground, taking on a new challenge.
The sale of Hobak Family was not a simple exit (Exit·investment recovery) but a strategic choice for the next challenge. Kim said, "To grow the company further, we needed a more systematic system and capital strength, and we judged that combining our content with the capital and infrastructure held by LIG Group would create great synergy."
Yellowground is a space planning and operations platform that combines content and wellness with real estate. Kim explained, "If existing real estate development focused on the hardware known as buildings, we are software developers who design what culture and experiences to embed in that space."
This attempt started from experience in dining. Kim said, "Dining is ultimately a location industry, and even if you do good business and grow a commercial district, the final beneficiary is the building owner, which is a structural limitation," adding, "Rather than paying rent, directly owning the space and accumulating value is far more efficient, which I felt on the ground." In fact, since 2015, he has directly purchased real estate and operated restaurants.
What Kim cites as the core competitiveness of a space is "wellness content." He said, "Younger generations are moving away from alcohol-centered cultural consumption and placing value on enjoying healthy daily life such as running, music and coffee," adding, "Wellness culture is taking hold as a new hip trend."
From this awareness of the problem, the representative content of Yellowground became "HITRUN," which combines boxing and running. While HITRUN is a sports center centered on boxing, it does not remain a simple exercise space.
It is a "community-type space brand" that takes an indoor space for learning boxing as a base, runs through the city together, and after workouts has coffee or enjoys barbecue parties to build connections among people. It also operates a lodging-linked program for foreign participants and plans to expand the content to health functional foods and sportswear.
Since Oct. of last year, Yellowground has held three HITRUN events combining running, boxing and barbecue parties, including Namsan Run and City Run. About 50 people joined each session, and the response was so hot that hundreds flocked as soon as recruitment notices went up.
HITRUN started with its first location in Jangchung-dong and is operating a second near Jangchung-dong and a third in Sindang-dong, Jung-gu. It has completed contracts up to the sixth location and aims to open the 20th within the year. Kim said, "HITRUN is a community-type wellness brand that connects people to people."
Kim is also accelerating efforts to penetrate overseas markets such as the United States. He is traveling between Korea and Hawaii to check the local market firsthand. He said, "Hawaii is a market where the supply of quality dining and content spaces is insufficient compared with demand," adding, "A space business that combines wellness content such as K-culture and beauty based on real estate can have sufficient competitiveness."
Yellowground plans to hold a running event in Hawaii in May. Kim said, "In Hawaii, a 'running heaven' where year-round running is possible, I want to grow HITRUN into a symbolic brand."
Kim also said, "In the short term, the goal is to create 10 landmarks in Seoul and Hawaii with Yellowground's own color," emphasizing, "With K-culture drawing global attention now, we will grow into a global lifestyle developer that conveys Korean culture through spaces."