David Kim is selling 47 GEN dining rooms for $100 million. The freezer aisle is what he keeps.

David Kim has agreed to the outline of a sale that would take GEN Korean BBQ out of most of its dining rooms. On October 14, GEN Restaurant Group, the Cerritos chain he chairs, signed a binding letter of intent to sell the operations of 47 U.S. restaurants to Chubby Group for $100 million. GEN would keep the brand and the packaged meat it sells in grocery freezers. The letter fixes a price. The leases, the licenses, and a final contract are still unsigned.

Kim was born in South Korea. His father was a diplomat, and the family immigrated when he was about 12. In 2006 he led the group that bought Baja Fresh from Wendy's for $31 million, four years after Wendy's had paid $275 million for the chain. Baja Fresh is no longer his. GEN started as one room in Tustin in September 2011, opened by Jae Chang, who had already run Korean barbecue and sushi shops. Kim joined right after. The GEN prospectus calls the two of them co-founders.

The room people book is an all-you-can-eat grill set into the table. Guests cook the meat themselves. Those rooms are the part of the business that has been shrinking. In the second quarter, sales at restaurants open at least a year and a half fell 9.3% from a year earlier. Companywide revenue still rose 1.2%, to $55.7 million, because the grocery line grew. GEN listed on Nasdaq in June 2023 at $12 a share. It closed Tuesday at $1.62. At that price, the case for holding every lease gets thin.

Kim's reason for selling them is what would leave with the keys. The company says about $160 million of restaurant lease liabilities would come off the books, and he says the note from Chubby should clear GEN's debt. Shareholders would still own the grocery line.

That line started in a freezer case in October 2025, in about 30 Southern California stores. By the August earnings report it was in nearly 2,000 doors, including more than 100 Costco warehouses, plus Albertsons and Smart & Final. Grocery revenue in the quarter rose 341% from the quarter before. The base is still small. June alone was a little over $2 million. Management's estimate for the next 12 months is a $35 million to $40 million pace. GEN's own comparison is that a grocery door costs a fraction of the roughly $3 million it takes to build another restaurant, and that more than half the people buying the package already know the name from dinner.

Chubby has already taken a few of the rooms. In the second quarter GEN moved four U.S. restaurants, including Mountain View and Jacksonville, into an earlier arrangement and kept a stake. The new letter is a larger version of a handoff that already happened.

Chubby was founded in 2016 by Haibin Yang, who goes by Harby, with David Zhao and Joyce Li. The group runs more than 70 restaurants, among them Chubby Cattle and The X Pot. On October 15 it said it had closed a $50 million funding round led by Prysm Capital, a growth investor, at a $500 million valuation.

Zhao's plan is four phases over 12 months, the first 12 restaurants aimed at November 1. Each would reopen as GEN X, a wagyu-heavier take on the same grill, or as one of Chubby's own concepts. Chubby pays for the remodel. GEN keeps the profit at each restaurant until the keys change hands. November 1 happens only if the contract is signed before then.

The other number attached to the deal is $1.5 billion. That is the valuation GEN could use to turn an unpaid balance on the note into Chubby shares. The cash price for the restaurants is $100 million.

Call before you drive over, and ask who will be running the room. GEN is keeping about three restaurants for training and for testing what goes into the package. Kim says the senior team will spend its time on the grocery line.

Most family shops will never get a letter like this. They still face the question Kim is answering: whether the business is the lease, or the product people already ask for by name. Succession and Exit Planning for Immigrant-Owned Family Shops is written for that decision. If a lender still has to read the books while the model changes, start with Small Business Banking When Your Books Don't Match Mainstream Templates.

Look in the freezer at Costco or Albertsons before you decide the brand left with the dining room.

This is educational reporting on GEN's October 14 letter of intent, its second-quarter results, Chubby's funding announcement, and earlier public filings. It is not investment, tax, or business advice. The contract, if one is signed, will set the terms.