LA’s Popular Silverlake Ramen Confirms Big New Franchising Plans

Silverlake Ramen is looking forward to its new location on the Third Street Promenade, which should open by early next year. But that’s far from the only new scheduled stop for the popular noodle shop, as it eyes a much larger expansion plan across Los Angeles and beyond.

Reached by phone yesterday, owner Jitaek Lim confirmed the Third Street Promenade location in Santa Monica, telling Eater that it will indeed be a new outpost of Silverlake Ramen, as opposed to some other side project. Lim also discussed the next iteration of the restaurant in total, which calls for a massive new franchising plan that starts locally, but could end up just about anywhere.

Santa Monica’s new location offers a first step of sorts into Silverlake Ramen’s franchising model, which lets independent owner-operators take over their own location while keeping the ramen shop’s menu, look, and business model. That will mean some necessary tweaks to not only scale up the sourcing of all their products, but also honing in on a workable collection of menu items that can be easily repeated across storefronts just about anywhere.

Lim also confirmed to Eater that another franchise location is coming Los Angeles in a hurry, this one near the intersection of 6th and Spring in Downtown. Housed in a former liquor store, that location should be open just before the end of the end of the year, whereas Santa Monica is likely to arrive in early 2018. The team also quietly opened their Silverlake Ramen 2Go space in Echo Park a few weeks ago, and still operates Ramen of York in Highland Park. Soon enough though, fans could start seeing independently-run Silverlake Ramens all across Los Angeles, and maybe eventually in cities throughout America.

• LA’s Own Healthy Deli Locali Targets National Expansion With New Franchise Deal [ELA]
• Osen Izakaya Delivers Japanese Luxury from a Silver Lake Strip Mall [ELA]