Engineer turns 11 years of failed ventures into Seoul restaurant success

A former construction engineer who walked away from a 15-year corporate career in 2015 has built a loyal following at a northern Seoul seolleongtang restaurant, applying data-recording methods from his engineering days to systematize one of Korea's oldest beef-bone soups.

Bae Han-sung's story offers a case study in career reinvention: 11 years of failed businesses and temporary factory work culminating in a patented cooking process that applies engineering discipline to a centuries-old Korean staple.

Bae, 51, spent 15 years across three companies in construction technology before leaving corporate work in 2015. He told The Korea Times he grew disillusioned watching executives repeatedly dismiss his team's months of development with a single offhand comment.

"I wanted to be in charge of my own work, even if it was on a small scale. At the company, my team could spend nights developing something, only for an executive to dismiss it with a single comment. After seeing that happen repeatedly, I wanted to hold the steering wheel myself," Bae said.

His first two ventures — an accessories company and then a travel startup — both failed. During the years in between he worked day shifts at a plastic manufacturing plant and nights at a dumpling factory. He later took over an existing Korean restaurant and operated it for two years before the landlord declined to renew his lease.

Committed to a fresh approach, Bae turned to systematic self-education. "I went to the library and read more than 50 books with words like 'restaurant,' 'business' and 'startup' in the title," he said. He then spent roughly one year working as an employee at three established seolleongtang restaurants, applying his engineer's habit of documentation to processes that experienced cooks performed entirely by feel.

The gap between intuition and measurement became the engine of his innovation. "They would check the broth a few times with a ladle and say, 'It's ready now.' But how was I supposed to know that? So I started recording data, writing down what was lacking and what needed improvement," Bae said, according to The Korea Times. That practice led to a patent for a seolleongtang broth preparation method designed to maximize efficiency and reduce cooking time — which Bae said he hopes will benefit others in the field once the details become publicly available.

Cheongpungok Seolleongtang, which Bae opened in 2022, is now in its fourth year of operation and built its following almost entirely through word of mouth. Asked what customer remark gives him the greatest satisfaction, Bae cited consistency over any notion of extraordinary flavor. "Taste is subjective. Even a famous restaurant may not appeal to everyone. But if customers say the food tastes the same every time they visit, that's something I can control. That makes me happy," he said. On the 11 years of setbacks that preceded his current success, Bae said he frames each difficulty as narrative material. "Failure hurts, but I never thought it was the end. I'm not going to stop after writing 10 chapters. There are always more pages ahead, and I can keep filling them," he said.