Mom's Touch plans a master-franchise push to go nationwide in Japan (interview)

Mom's Touch is a Korean quick-service chicken burger franchise which says it has the most restaurants of any QSR chain in Korea: 1,420, versus roughly 400 McDonald's and just over 490 Burger King (self-reported in the interview).

That hallyu-driven demand plus the Shibuya flagship's traction can make Mom's Touch a nationwide Japanese brand via a master franchise or JV, collecting brand fees.

Mom's Touch was founded in 2004, decades after global rivals, and by 2024 claimed the largest restaurant count in Korean QSR. CEO Kim Dong-jeon — a former Samsung Electronics wireless senior manager who joined operator KL & Partners and took the CEO job in 2021 — tested Japan with an October 2023 Shibuya pop-up tied to the Korean wave.

The directly managed Shibuya restaurant opened on April 16, 2024 and attracted an average of about 3,000 visitors a day, helped by signature items Kim considers authentically Korean — the Thigh Burger and Sweet and Spicy Chicken — and by hallyu momentum: the pop-up devoted a floor to the Korean webtoon 'The Remarried Empress'. Kim chose not to establish a Japanese legal entity, citing high investment costs and risk, and is exploring either a master franchise deal or a joint venture, with Mom's Touch collecting brand loyalty fees from a Japanese partner. In Korea the chain kept expanding into downtown Seoul and tourist spots while holding chicken below 20,000 won and cutting pizza prices by 1,000 won.

The flagship-then-franchise sequence prices the market before committing: Shibuya proved demand, and the franchise structure scales it without capital risk.

Brand-fee economics mirror what the global QSR giants run in Korea — the chain is copying the playbook of the incumbents it outgrew at home.

Hallyu is doing the marketing: a webtoon floor in the pop-up and Gen Z's appetite for Korean food put the brand on a trend survey before it even opened.

Holding prices below inflation at home protects the positioning that got the chain to 1,420 stores while it looks abroad.

A single flagship in a trend capital can do the market research no focus group can — then a master franchise converts that proof into national scale without the capital and risk of owned stores.

As of 15 May 2024 the Japanese structure was still being decided between master franchise and JV, with no local entity established; Kim said he was too busy in Japan to return to Seoul until the following month. No signed Japanese partner is reported in the material.