On Thursday morning, the largest Asian supermarket chain in the United States opened its first East Bay store to great fanfare. The new H Mart in Dublin drew an estimated 10,000 people throughout the day, with lines so long in the morning that it took an hour just to get inside the store, an H Mart spokesperson told SFGATE.
The Dublin H Mart sells produce, meat, seafood, banchan, snacks, pantry staples, and health and beauty products. It also features a food hall with six different vendors: Oh K-Dog & Egg Toast (Korean-style corn dogs and toast), Kyodong Noodles (Korean Chinese cuisine), Chodang (soft tofu soup), BBQ Chicken (Korean fried chicken), Daeho (galbijjim) and Tous Les Jours (French Asian bakery).
The popular Korean grocery store’s arrival in the East Bay has been four years in the making, with the San Francisco Business Times first reporting the New Jersey-headquartered chain’s plans to transform a former Orchard Supply Hardware store into an H Mart in 2022. The new store at 7884 Dublin Blvd. marks the chain’s fourth location in the Bay Area, with other stores in San Francisco and San Jose. H Mart also plans to open its largest location in the entire country in Fremont, with construction anticipated to begin late this year, SFGATE reported in January. H Mart’s first store opened in New York City in 1982, and the chain has since grown to more than 100 locations across 18 states.
Mega Mart, another Korean supermarket chain, is also slated to open in Dublin at 2480 Dublin Blvd., less than 5 miles away from the new H Mart. The Bay Area has recently seen a wave of Asian supermarket openings, from Tokyo Central in Emeryville in January to Osaka Marketplace in Foster City in December (the Japanese grocery chain is also planning a Pleasant Hill location). Additionally, the Canada-headquartered Asian grocery chain T&T Supermarket is planning to open three stores in the Bay Area this year in San Francisco, San Jose and Millbrae.
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