A celebrated burger joint wants to reclaim this checkered Tacoma street corner | Opinion
In my mind, it’s still the old 24-hour check-cashing place.
Crammed awkwardly into a weird, triangular parcel between Sprague and Division, on the cusp of Hilltop, it’s where I went to redeem 10 cents-a-word freelance payouts, two decades ago, when I needed the money.
For a fee, an employee behind bulletproof glass would scrutinize my offering and verify its authenticity, often through a humbling call to my employer. Then, if I was lucky, I’d get the small sum I had coming.
As far as business models go, it was one as old as time: squeezing the downtrodden. You visited the 24-hour Money Mart at 1701 Division Ave. because you had no choice.
Unsurprisingly, the oddly shaped, exploitative enterprise invited trouble to the neighborhood. It closed permanently in 2018 and has remained vacant ever since.
That’s one reason I’m hoping Young La succeeds.
La is the small business owner behind Tacoma’s Burger Seoul, the celebrated food trailer he opened in 2015.
As The News Tribune’s Kristine Sherred reported last month, a regulatory entanglement spun by bureaucrats recently forced La to abandon Burger Seoul’s original location in a convenience store parking lot at the corner of South 19th and Prospect.
La is now hoping to bring new life to a hard-luck corner at Sprague and Division, where the old Money Mart once resided.
Last week, La said getting the new building fit for business will require a significant financial investment, including the cost of an underground grease interceptor. He signed a lease late last year, The News Tribune previously reported.
The city of Tacoma’s Community Redevelopment Authority Board recently approved financing from its small business revolving loan fund, according to spokesperson Maria Lee.
La has also benefited from the community’s generosity, in the form of a GoFundMe campaign launched late last month, which has now raised $30,000 of its $50,000 goal.
“It’s right in the middle of a busy neighborhood, in a central area, with a lot of businesses and restaurants and hospitals nearby. It’s really a dream spot for me,” said La, indicating he hopes to open the new brick-and-mortar Burger Seoul later this spring.
La told me he’s confident Burger Seoul will pull it off, eventually. He’s keeping his fingers crossed, grateful for the support he’s already received.
Assuming the pieces fall into place, La is gearing up to serve an expanded menu filled with the same Korean-inspired American fare that made Burger Seoul a local favorite, he explained.
“The neighbors have been really supportive,” said La, who parked his Burger Seoul trailer in the new location as an enticing preview of what’s to come.
“We’re not just selling products … we want to be part of the community,” La said. “It’s going to bring a cultural experience to the neighborhood. We want to bring more people and more energy.”
While the corner of Sprague and Division has been known to attract energy, its magnetism hasn’t always been positive. During its time as a Money Mart, La’s new address made at least 14 appearances in The News Tribune’s old Police Beat column, according to a review of the available archives.
Mostly, the annals reveal a mix of desperation and the failures of small-time crooks, like foiled attempts to pass bad checks or pull one over on grandma. Occasionally, the action was more intriguing; in 2004, a missing employee was described as a “person of interest” after a manager arrived in the middle of the night to find the door unlocked and cash missing from the safe, former TNT scribe Stacey Mulick reported at the time.
In recent years, of course, the old Money Mart has taken a more insidious toll on a neighborhood that could use a few more breaks.
The property has simply been abandoned and forgotten.
“Generally speaking, active and occupied neighborhood storefronts are a good thing, not just economically, but for neighborhood character and an overall welcoming environment,” Linda Robson, a spokesperson for the city of Tacoma, told me.
“There’s no doubt the broader economy has shifted gears since Covid,” Robson added, “but there’s still a place for brick-and-mortar businesses, especially when they are interwoven into our neighborhoods and contribute to a positive neighborhood vibe.”
On Hilltop, the drain of disinvestment and empty storefronts is painful and familiar. That’s the problem.
As locals recall, the former Rite Aid at South 11th and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard spent nearly a decade as a vacant, hallowed-out, retail husk before the property was purchased by a nonprofit in 2019 and tabbed for redevelopment that’s still taking shape.
Last year, the Walgreens on Sprague shuttered, magnifying the neighborhood’s plight. The drug store’s departure left plywood over the windows and the kind of void that has long wreaked havoc in the area. Today, it’s a canvas for graffiti and a symptom of corporate neglect.
La plans to open the new Burger Seoul directly across a busy intersection from the empty and festering Walgreens.
Here’s hoping he succeeds.
The corner of Sprague and Division deserves it.
“It’s a little fire with the hope,” La said of his ultimate vision.
“With good intentions, we can change things,” he told me.
“That’s what I’m looking for.”
This story was originally published April 5, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
