Wisconsin now has its own outpost of one of South Korea's biggest fried chicken exports. bb.q Chicken has opened its first franchise store in the state at 222 E. Erie St. in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward, moving into the storefront that spent the last eight years as the modern Korean restaurant Char'd.
The nearest previous bb.q Chicken location before this one sat in Waukegan, Illinois, according to Urban Milwaukee. As OnMilwaukee reports, the new store is run by Choonghoon Lee and Lane Kim, the same pair who operated Char'd in that same storefront before closing it at the end of May to make the switch to the franchise model. The chain's name, pronounced bee-bee-que, stands for best of the best quality, and the brand now counts more than 3,500 locations across more than 50 countries, with over 250 of them in the United States.
From Lava Stones to a Global Franchise
Char'd had occupied the Erie Street space since 2018, establishing itself as the Third Ward's pioneer Korean restaurant with lava-stone tabletop grilling and ssam plates, Hoodline previously reported on the restaurant's closure. Its transformation into bb.q Chicken follows the owners' plan to reopen the space as a franchise location. That shift illustrates a real tension in gentrifying urban neighborhoods like the Third Ward, where independent dining concepts increasingly compete with, or give way to, established franchise chains.
Founded in South Korea in 1995, bb.q Chicken built its reputation on a traditional double-frying method using a starch-based batter, meant to produce a light, shatteringly crisp exterior, per Urban Milwaukee's reporting. The Milwaukee menu carries that signature technique across wing styles including honey garlic, spicy galbi, gang-jeong and cheesling, according to OnMilwaukee.
What's on the Menu Beyond Wings
Beyond wings, the Erie Street menu includes ddeok-bokki made with rice cakes and fish cakes in a sweet and spicy chili sauce, along with a rosé version of the same dish, OnMilwaukee notes. The menu also includes French Fries, fried dumplings, pickled radish and kimchi fried rice.
OnMilwaukee's senior food writer and dining editor Lori Fredrich covered the opening.
A Corporate Machine Behind the Counter
The chicken arriving on Erie Street is backed by serious corporate infrastructure. Parent company Genesis BBQ Group recorded roughly $204.69 million in U.S. consumer sales in 2024, representing 75 percent of its total global overseas revenue across more than 30 states, according to Businesskorea.
That standardization extends to the kitchen itself. Genesis BBQ changed its signature frying oil recipe for the first time in 18 years back in October 2023, swapping pure Spanish extra virgin olive oil for a blend of 50 percent Spanish extra virgin olive oil and 49.99 percent sunflower oil to offset rising global ingredient costs, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily. On the operations side, bb.q Chicken finished a nationwide rollout of Deliverect software across more than 250 U.S. locations in February, integrating its Toast point-of-sale system with delivery platforms including Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub, per PR Newswire.
Part of a Bigger Korean Food Wave
The Third Ward opening also lands amid a broader wave of Korean dining expansion across central Milwaukee this year. GogiHaus Korean BBQ is set to arrive on W. Wisconsin Ave., and Soban Korean Eatery has been expanding on N. Milwaukee St., moves Hoodline has tracked in its coverage of the downtown Korean BBQ scene. Together with bb.q Chicken's arrival, the openings point to growing consumer demand for Korean food in the city's core neighborhoods, even as the Third Ward says goodbye to the lava-stone grilling that made Char'd a local pioneer of the cuisine.
