Salt Lake City’s dessert scene could look a lot more Seoul in a few months, if one local baker can turn online buzz into cold, hard cash.
Klara Han, the baker behind Korean pastry brand Kyookie, is asking the public to help her open what she says would be Utah’s first Korean dessert cafe. She has launched a crowdfunding campaign to turn her viral menu items, including buttery salt bread and chocolate mochi balls, into a full-time brick-and-mortar operation.
According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Han started selling her desserts in 2023, growing from Instagram orders to farmers market booths and cafe drops as word spread. The outlet reports that Kyookie began as a dorm-room baking habit, then escalated to repeated sellouts at local events.
Kyookie traces that evolution from small bake sales to a business that now operates out of a commercial kitchen while supplying weekly drops to neighborhood shops. The site lists regular pickup partnerships with local cafes, including Space Tea and The Tea Barn, and promotes a rotating weekly menu announced on social media.
Menu and the cafe vision
Han’s goal is a Seoul-style dessert cafe with a wide display of freshly made pastries alongside coffee, a setup she says prioritizes balance and presentation over in-your-face sweetness. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that salt bread would anchor the menu, joined by yakgwa-cheesecake cookies, matcha ganache cookies, Basque cheesecake variations, and the viral Dubai chocolate mochi balls. She also plans to pour Korean coffee drinks and serve savory breakfast sandwiches, and told reporters the earliest feasible opening, if funding comes through, could be in May or sometime before summer.
How the Kickstarter is tracking
The crowdfunding campaign launched in early January and is scheduled to run for roughly a month to cover startup costs for a storefront and equipment. Third-party trackers list the project dates as Jan. 5 through Feb. 5 and show the drive moving toward its $40,000 goal. For current pledge totals and timelines, the campaign page aggregator on Kicktraq follows the project’s progress.
Where Kyookie might land
Han and her partner say they are considering a few high-traffic areas for their first location, including downtown Salt Lake City, a spot near the University of Utah, or Sugar House. They have also floated a long-term plan to franchise a Korean dessert-café concept across the region. Those neighborhood targets and the broader franchise ambitions are outlined on Kyookie as part of the business case pitched to potential backers.
Dessert-focused Korean cafes have been gaining traction in larger U.S. cities, where photogenic pastries and specialty coffee tend to drive both foot traffic and social media posts. Coverage of that trend, including recent U.S. openings for Korean dessert brands and the arrival of French-Asian bakery chains in Utah, suggests there is a local appetite for the format. For a sense of that growing wave, see reporting from Eater LA and franchise news in Utah covered by QSR Magazine.
