You may not have heard of Red Velvet, BTS or Black Pink. But to an entire community of fans these are global superstars or, as they call them, idols.
A new cafe and store in Nottingham is hoping to change all that by opening the city's first one-stop, K-Pop shop. Fans will be able to pick up music and merchandise on the top floor of the new store on St. James' Terrace before heading to the street food cafe below for a bowl of instant ramen, made famous by the K-dramas (Korean TV dramas).
Fans of K-Pop have been forced to travel to other cities such as London or Birmingham to get their fix as there is nothing like this in Nottingham despite an army of fans and K-Pop university societies.
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The House of PKL is set to open to the public from Sunday, November 20 with plans to hold ticket-only events on Friday and Saturday. Demand has been huge with tickets for the pre-opening events already almost sold out. Fans have even offered to work in the cafe for free just to be part of the K-Pop community.
Owner Anastasia Tsappis, from Wollaton, decided to open the store after her three daughters became fans of the music. She said: "We were having to travel to Birmingham, Manchester or London to take the girls to places that sold the merchandise.
"I got fed up with hearing them say, I wish there was a K-Pop store in Nottingham. We wanted to give them the experience that they wanted so it's for them and fans like them," she explained.
"When it comes to the cafe, when we travel, we often have to find something to eat. Some of the fans will go to random cafes after they buy the merchandise, open what they have bought and put it on Instagram. There isn't really anywhere for teenagers to go. Some of the bars let the students hold nights there once a week or once a month. But the younger ones have nowhere to go and just sit."
The shop is already fully stocked with everything fans could want from beautifully decorated albums to stickers to socks and the all-important light sticks that fans wave at performances. Fans often collect the albums and merchandise hoping to complete a full set by contacting each other to see who has what and where they can pick up the latest imports.
The cafe will serve Korean street food favourites such as Korean corn dogs which Anastasia says cause massive queues in London where fans are desperate to try them. The plan is to bring new exciting dishes to the city while keeping it simple and affordable. There will also be events held in the evenings.
"We are going to do Korean Street food along with Boba tea and hot drinks. We are going to be doing Korean corn dogs and I think we are the only ones outside of London doing it. When we go to London, we have to stand in line for an hour to get them. We are waiting on the machine to arrive in order to be able to make them," she explained.
"We are hoping to start offering food in the next few weeks. We will also be doing instant ramen too which you see in the K-dramas. In the shows, you see them go to the convenience store to buy the ramen, then they sit there to eat it which is what we have done. We have ramen for people to buy along with the corn dogs and Tteok-kkochi which are Korean rice cakes."
She added: "You have them on a skewer, grill them with sauces. We aren't going to try to do restaurant food because we aren't a restaurant. People can come and have an experience of Korean street food."
Transforming the building from its former life as a Caribbean-themed restaurant to a white cafe has not been easy. The building was also a wine bar at one stage and is over 350 years old.
"Everything was bright orange with palm trees so we spent a lot of time painting. It's a listed building so we can't do anything which is why we have the pillars everywhere. We've had to apply thousands of coats of paint to try to cover the walls."
It's all hands on deck at the moment as the soft launch starts tonight with a private event for the Kpop societies from both universities. Demand has already been high to attend the opening as most of the tickets for Saturday's event are gone.
"We've invited the societies in from the colleges and universities for free drinks and to have a look around because they love this stuff so much so it's nice for them to have a look around before we open. Then tomorrow, we have a ticket-only event to try to control how many people arrive as when my girls visit other shops they can be in there for at least an hour," she explained.
"We want to give people time to get the stuff and have a nice experience. We are almost sold out and only have four tickets left for two-hour time slots then they are gone. We plan to open from Thursday to Sunday."
Anastasia has plans for the store and cafe once it gets going in the next few months. She would like to look at moving closer to the city centre and also, holding events in the cafe.
"There isn't really anywhere to go if you are a younger person in the evenings so we are going to do event nights as well maybe once a month. At the moment, teenagers can go to parks, town or bowling but there aren't many meeting places that are safe to hang out in where they feel welcome to gather. Sometimes people don't want to drink but they still want to get out of the house and socialise which they can do here."
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