Funk Seoul Truck to Open Bricks-and-Mortar Location

Funk Seoul Brother, which is subtitled "Korean Street Food" and serves creative dishes inspired by Korean and Japanese fare, is one of our favorite food trucks in town. In fact, last year we crowned it Best New Food truck in the Best of Nashville writers' choice awards. (In his BON blurb, the late great Scene editor Jim Ridley wrote that Funk Seoul Brother's dishes "deliver knee-weakening payloads of umami.")

Here's today's exciting news: Funk Seoul Brother, owned by B.J. Lofback of Riffs Hospitality, is preparing to stake out a bricks-and-mortar location. The new cafe is coming to 2057 Scarritt Place, which is just off 21st Avenue South across from Vanderbilt University (replacing GoGo Sushi). It will operate under the Riffs umbrella, along with sister restaurant Riffs Café at Highland Ridge.

One of the key specialties offered at the Funk Seoul Brother restaurant will be sushi burritos, Lofback notes in today's announcement.

“I saw talk of sushi burritos start to pop up online, so I decided to test them as a truck special. That was a little more than a year ago, and we’re still rolling,” Lofback says. “We were the first to serve them in Nashville, and there is no way I can stop selling them; the demand grows month over month. It’s certainly a major food trend, but I also see longevity because the traditional flavors remain popular and I am always experimenting with ingredients you wouldn’t normally see in sushi.”

The Korrito, for example, is a fusion of Japanese and Korean flavors: Nori and sticky rice are wrapped around beef bulgogi (the meat sourced from Porter Road Butcher), gochujang barbecue sauce, carrots, kimchi cucumbers, ginger-scallion aioli and bits of potato chip.

Some of the Funk Seoul Brother truck's signature menu items like bi bim bap and Korean BBQ tacos will also be on the cafe menu. Lofback is also offering poke bowls, a popular national trend. Poke (pronounced "po-kay") is a dish of Hawaiian origin showcasing chunks of fresh marinated raw fish.

“I’ve had some great poke dishes in town, but I don’t know of any restaurants that serve a variety of poke bowls,” Lofback says. “I love the fresh flavors in this dish and the originating combination of origins - Hawaiian by way of Korea and Japan — speaks precisely to my point of view.”

It all sounds very promising, but the bad news is Lofback and the Funk Seoul Brother restaurant team — which includes Lofback's friend and colleague Mark Rubin, whom he met through work at the Second Harvest Food Bank — have not set an opening date. We do know the cafe will fill 1,200 square feet, with 45 seats, plus takeout and delivery options.

For updates, follow @funkseoultruck on social media.