Is H Mart Coming to St. Paul?

I didn’t know if I’d live to see this day: H Mart, the largest Asian supermarket chain in the U.S., might be coming to St. Paul. Per the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal, an entity that appears to be H Mart’s real estate arm has purchased part of Midway Marketplace on University Avenue for $6 million. (Owner Kraus-Anderson Realty clarifies that it sold both the 75,500-square-foot former Cub Foods space and the 114,000-square-foot former At Home space, but it still owns a good portion of the property.) At this point, we can’t be 100 percent sure that H Mart is coming, as the supermarket chain itself has not confirmed it. But signs point to yes. 

If you’ve never been to an H Mart, fair! The closest one is a six-hour drive away, down in Chicago. (Take note that there’s a Super H Mart next door to the famous King Spa and Sauna in Niles, Illinois, and the best thing you can do after a long soak and scrub is to amble across the parking lot for some post-spa treats.) The company was founded by South Korean immigrant Il Yeon Kwon in Queens, New York, in 1982, and has since expanded to 97 locations across the country. H Marts are sprawling, sparkling markets, with aisles upon aisles of fine short-grain rice varieties and zeitgeist-y Korean snacks and red bean ice cream sandwiches and more flavors of Shin Raymun than you’ll find anywhere else in the world, plus pantry staples, fresh meat, seafood, and produce. The bigger-format stores usually double as food halls, too, with hot food counters around their perimeter. 

A trip to H Mart is a dazzling culinary experience—a prism of nostalgia, thrill, comfort, curiosity, and delight, depending on who you are, where your roots lie, and what you grew up eating. (There’s a reason that musician Michelle Zauner titled her best-selling memoir about her mother’s death and her Korean American identity Crying in H Mart.) Though I’m excited about the prospect of H Mart coming to St. Paul, I do worry what it would mean for the Cities’ many family-owned Asian grocery stores, especially in the Midway and Frogtown neighborhoods: Dragon Star Oriental Foods, where Bella Zhan sells her handmade mochi donuts; 88 Oriental Foods, which has grown into a small family empire that includes Basil Cafe and Zao Bakery and Cafe; even HmongTown Marketplace.

H Mart has immense cultural cachet and it would be wonderful to see it transform a languishing property like Midway Marketplace, which has seen some major retail departures in recent years—but it would be up to us as consumers to temper the buzz with extra thoughtfulness about where our dollars are going. For now, we wait and see.1450 University Ave. W., St. Paul

Correction, June 16: This article was edited to include Kraus-Anderson Realty’s clarification that it still owns part of Midway Marketplace.