Grand Ole Opry's Mama Kim reflects on 50 years doing business in Itaewon

Kim Sang-sook, better known as Mama Kim, 86, works behind the bar at Grand Ole Opry in central Seoul's Itaewon, June 29. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

By Matt VanVolkenburg

• Published Jul 4, 2026 5:11 AM KST

Grand Ole Opry's owner, Kim Sang-sook, better known to her customers as "Mama Kim," still goes to work six days a week at age 86. Though her voice is hoarse with age, she still commands attention in a room of rowdy drinkers.

She opened the doors to her bar on June 29, her only day off that week, to speak about her life and experiences. The special event, organized by Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea, gathered more than 50 people to hear Mama Kim speak about her more than 50 years of doing business in central Seoul's multicultural Itaewon area.

For decades, the alleys behind Itaewon Fire Station were filled with clubs dating back to the 1960s with names like King, UN, Playboy, Seven and Lucky that catered to American soldiers. Now, Grand Ole Opry is the last of its kind in the area.

Mama Kim has been featured in the media many times, including on CNN and in Playboy Korea. With her half-century of experience working in Itaewon, it is not uncommon for her to be approached for interviews or requests to speak. For years she has spoken to Ewha Womans University students, but when they first invited her, she was somewhat taken aback by the idea.

“I said, ‘Hey, I have four years of school. I cannot teach college people,’” she recalled. She ended up agreeing when they told her they were interested in hearing the stories of a “strong” and “hard-working” businesswoman.

Her short time in school was due to the 1950-53 Korean War, which began when she was 11 years old.

“Everybody 75 or younger (today), they don't know the Korean War, how much we had to work,” she said, or about the hunger and privation that accompanied the war: “We didn't have any shoes, we didn't have any clothes, nothing.”

With her two oldest brothers in the Army, she had to work to support her five other siblings.

When she was 16 years old, she began selling fish, buying it in Incheon and then returning to Seoul by train to sell it in markets like Namdaemun or Dongdaemun.

“There was so much work,” she said. She maintains this work ethic even today, opening the bar at 7 p.m. most evenings and going to bed at 8 a.m. the next morning.

When she opened the Grand Ole Opry at age 35 in 1975, drinks at the bar sold for 200 won, and land near the Hamilton Hotel sold for 50,000 won per pyeong — barely enough to buy 10 square centimeters of land there today.

At that time, another country music bar, Sam’s Club, was further up the hill, but it drew a younger crowd with more rock-inflected country music. Grand Ole Opry drew an older clientele, particularly officers, who were drawn to a particular aspect of its hiring requirements for waitresses — that they speak English well. As a result, all of the 19 waitresses on staff were well-educated. “That's why everybody — majors, captains — everybody comes in,” Mama Kim said.

Among them was her future husband, Charlie, a Vietnam veteran from Texas. He would visit often, and spend freely, leading her to wonder, “How much money [does he] have [to] always come back and spend this much?” She eventually realized he was “thinking about me, that’s why.”

Since Charlie’s passing more than 20 years ago, the folded American flag from his funeral has been displayed near the entrance to the bar. “My husband is in Dallas, so I keep it here,” she said.

To run a bar in the old days, she said, she needed to be a “very strong woman. They want to give me a hard time, I don't want to listen.”

She was able to put people in their place with “just a look.”

Luckily, she said, with country music, “nobody wants to fight. They want to listen to music, they want to think about the story. You know, country songs always have a story.” U.S. military police also helped keep the peace among the soldiers, though she did have to deal with problems unrelated to the military.

When she first bought the bar, there were “too many gangsters in Itaewon” who would “make it tough.” Sometimes they went beyond demanding protection money, such as one time when they approached her sister, who was working at the bar, and told her the bar needed to start holding strip shows.

Her response was, “It’s a country bar! How can I have a strip show? Are you crazy?”

Not understanding what a country bar was, they took offense at the refusal and threatened to shut the bar down, throwing an ashtray at her sister and causing an injury that required seven stitches.

After consulting their brother, he found an ex-convict who was even more intimidating than the gangsters, and as a result “they never came back.”

One of the things that makes Grand Ole Opry unique today is its status as the last Itaewon bar to have a 1970s-era special tourist license that allows it to serve drinks tax-free — a policy that was originally enacted to entice GIs to spend U.S. dollars off base. While this meant cheaper drinks for foreign customers, its requirement that only foreigners be served also created frictions with Korean men who did not always respond well to being told to leave.

Another hallmark of the Grand Ole Opry is the 50 years of memorabilia to be found on the walls, including a painting of a woman taken from a Budweiser can that she commissioned in 1975 for 30,000 won that was painted by a mute painter. “He died," Mama Kim said. "That's why I keep this one.”

The most notable memorabilia are the thousands of 1,000 won and dollar bills hanging above the bar and affixed to the walls. Asked if she remembers the location of the oldest bill on display, she replied, “Yes, 1976. You know, my husband's friend, he had a dollar. He said, ‘[I’m] never coming back to the Grand Ole Opry,’ and I said, ‘Sure, no problem.’ That's why I keep it there.”

On the topic of money, she said that despite everyone’s focus on earning it, you can’t take it with you when you die. “Money is not your money," she said. "Money [is] always walking around.”

After the deaths of her siblings, she used Grand Ole Opry’s earnings to support her nephews and nieces, putting four of them through grad school.

As for the future of Grand Ole Opry, Mama Kim said that she hopes to maintain the bar as a museum, either in its current location or, if necessary, by moving it to land she purchased in Danyang. “Even if I die, I hope this continues forever.”

Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr, and co-author of "Called by Another Name: A Memoir of the Gwangju Uprising."