Vedanti Patil

Standing in front of the restaurant’s entrance, co-owners Mrs. Jae-Kyung Kim and Mr. Kiho Kim pose together in the Fresh Heim Steak & Salad restaurant. After immigrating from Korea, the married couple took ownership of the restaurant and integrated an Asian twist on the classic American menu.

Placing an emphasis on freshness, the owners of the Fresh Heim Steak & Salad restaurant, Mrs. Jae-Kyung Kim and her husband, Mr. Kiho Kim, serve authentic health-focused items with a focus on incorporating Korean and American selections, adding an Asian twist to typical American flavors.

Even when Mrs. Kim was young, she enjoyed cooking. She would imitate other people’s cooking often. Kim experienced her first taste of cooking for others in Korea when she would cook for the church.

“People would have positive responses,” Mrs. Kim said. “Like, ‘Oh, it’s very delicious’, and that motivated me and kept me going.” 

Mrs. Kim’s experiences in cooking inspired her to start a business in the food industry. When she immigrated to America, she began looking for places to start a restaurant and pursue her lifelong passion for cooking. Her search led her to the Fresh Heim Steakhouse.

“I had always wanted to have a restaurant,” Mrs. Kim said. “As I was searching, I came across this place and it just worked out.”

Initially, the restaurant was a pre-existing Fresh Heim Steakhouse, serving mostly just steak. In January of 2024, however, Mrs. Kim and her husband took over the restaurant as co-owners.

“We [newly] incorporated Korean food [in the menu],” Mrs. Kim said. “[However], the restaurant was already established.”

Despite being pre-established, Fresh Heim Steakhouse & Salad had a slow start following the addition of Korean food to the menu in January. The restaurant relied completely on word-of-mouth advertising, especially among Austin’s Asian community.

“We didn’t do any marketing on the side,” Mrs. Kim said. “It was just word-of-mouth and people putting [our restaurant] on Instagram with good [feedback]. Around February [and] March, because of word-of-mouth… our business has picked up a lot. It [was] very unexpected [but] it’s very good for us.”

Upon taking ownership of the restaurant, Mrs. Kim immediately capitalized on the freshness of the food. The most important thing, to her, is that all the food is handmade and fresh, bringing a healthy aspect to the menu that is often lacking in quick-paced fast food chains.

“Anything that’s fresh is good for your health,” Mrs. Kim said. “It’s very healthy for you. The majority of everything [at our restaurant] is organic and homemade, so that brings [a special] freshness to our customers.”

She believes that authenticity is getting increasingly more important in the growing era of consumerism and fast food. Allowing the customers to sit down and allow themself a moment of rest in the rapid bustle of life is crucial to her.

“In this world right now, there’s a lot of fast food and everything’s quicker, on the go,” Mrs. Kim said. “But those are very bad for your health. So our food, since it’s made from scratch, might take a little bit longer than those places, [but] what makes us different is that it’s fresh. It’s very healthy for the customers.”

According to Mrs. Kim, what makes Fresh Heim’s Steak & Salad unique in its field is its focus on freshness and home-cooked foods. Her focus on authenticity has led her to go to Korean and American markets every morning to get fresh ingredients, buying just as they need for day-to-day cooking.

“Everything is made from scratch, and everything is made on the spot,” Mrs. Kim said. “There’s nothing that’s pre-cooked or anything that we just heat up. Everything is done fresh, so that’s what makes us unique and special. All the sauces are made from scratch. That’s most important for us.”

With the rise of the Korean pop (K-pop) industry internationally, Korean culture is becoming increasingly popular throughout many Western countries, including the United States. Mrs. Kim believes that this has contributed to the publicity that her restaurant received.

“Korean culture is K-pop culture, and it’s thriving and being incorporated a lot into the United States,” Mrs. Kim said. “I wanted to be part of that and incorporate Korean food into introducing Korean culture. Korean culture is very well-known right now, and I think that has an effect on our restaurant as well. A foreigner, or an American, will come to the restaurant. They would get to try different Korean foods as well.”

As a co-owner of the restaurant, Mr. Kim is involved more in the actual cooking, while Mrs. Kim takes charge of the preparation. However, they both attribute their success to working together and collaborating.

“I’ll do the prepping of all the ingredients, and my husband does all the actual cooking,” Mrs. Kim said. “We help each other out like this. We have our own parts and such.”

The biggest struggle for Mrs. Kim and her husband was outward communication. The inability to speak fluent English resulted in a language barrier. However, she was able to overcome it.

“I had a community that helped me,” Mrs. Kim said. “I also had helpers that translated for us or helped us along the way. My kids also helped us with it.”

Despite the language barrier, Mrs. Kim expresses herself through her food, made authentically with love. Her favorite menu item to cook is the sauces; they are all completely handcrafted, and seeing people enjoy her cooking brings her the most joy.

“With the steak, there’s salad that goes with it, but then all the sauces that we have, it’s all homemade,” Mrs. Kim said. “I’m very proud of my sauces, [with them], I enjoy anything that’s on the menu.”

Mrs. Kim finds her job very rewarding. Those who pass through Fresh Heim’s Steak & Salad note that her ardent passion for cooking is evident throughout every dish she creates, pouring her love for the craft into every item.

“Seeing the response of my customers and [them] giving me good feedback makes me proud,” Mrs. Kim said. “They’ll bring someone else, or refer [through] word-of-mouth. That’s what brings me the most joy.”