The long-empty Dickson Bros. hardware store in Harvard Square is about to become a glitzy, multistory Korean barbecue restaurant open late and adding to the area’s many all-you-can-eat options.
Gen Korean BBQ House goes before Cambridge’s License Commission on Tuesday.
The chain, founded in in 2011 in Los Angeles, has more than 50 company-owned locations across the country, but the closest are in New Jersey and New York. This first in New England would be a big one: a basement, three floors of dining and a rooftop deck for a total occupancy of 293 people diners over 8,671 square feet.
It would become a higher-end analogue to Felipe’s Mexican Taqueria, a multistory spot with a rooftop across Brattle Street and able to hold around 250 people at a time.
At Gen Korean, diners grill their own meals at their tables; the all-you-can-eat option allows unlimited rounds of food within a two-hour time limit, according to the restaurant website, and there’s a fee for leftovers. Managers accept reservations only for parties of 10 or more. The seatings at this location are proposed to start at 11 a.m. and go to to 11 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and to 1 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
The nearest Korean barbecue is Koreana, at 158 Prospect St. in The Port neighborhood in Cambridge between Central and Inman squares. Sura BBQ in Boston has all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue and shabu shabu, the Japanese hot pot that is also made at the diners’ table.
Dickson Bros. operated at 26 Brattle St. Dickson Bros. for nearly 80 years, with owner Ned Ver Planck selling generations of Harvard students and other residents everything from paint and hammers to alarm clocks, welcome mats and teapots – everything needed for a home. Already facing pressures from online retail, the store closed in the summer of 2020, during the Covid pandemic.
Billionaire Gerald Chan bought the real estate that November for $10.1 million and said in 2021 that he was considering opening offices in the space, but at least the ground floor – with the iconic Dickson Bros. facade still in place – has seen no use for nearly six years.
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