H Mart Asian Market is opening in SE Portland
[This story has been confirmed ]
Ever since Zupans Market closed their store on SE Belmont in Portland, there has been a lot of rumors floating around about what will replace it. One seems to be gaining some traction – H Mart.
H Mart is a huge Asian/Korean grocery store; think Uwajimaya on steroids, though the Belmont space is much smaller than some of their other branches. They opened a store on SW Pacific Highway in Tigard in June 2008, which I reviewed here. The chain consists of almost 60 stores spread across the United States. I go there 4-5 times a year to pick up ingredients I can’t get at local stores. In my experience, the service isn’t good, but other than that it’s a decent store, and is looking better than Uwajimaya, which seems to be slowly going downhill, with less stock and not as clean a feel as it used to have.
Mateu says
I’m a bit alarmed by the “racist” comment. That seems worth clarifying.
M Ava says
‘H’ Mart? Not sure about the branding here? Are they capitalizing in on the K-Mart /bi-mart branding phenomena of the 70’s? ‘The Marts’, a departure from the over-stated, and campy ‘supermarket’ came across as fresh and modern, at the time. Unfortunately now, it appears somewhat stale and overused. Lets hope the fare inside will prove more inviting because theres not much about 2 heavy verticle bars crossed by a horizontial one that makes me hungry.
PDX Food Dude says
H Mart is an international chain which has been around for years – http://www.hmartus.com/
Calvin says
I Think the H stands for Hanguk which is the Korean word for native people. Hangul which is a similar word is the name for their phonetic alphabet.