After growing up in the family business, owning a convenience store became a natural career choice for Dennis Kim, owner of Let’s Go Market, which has two locations in Cleveland, Texas. “I’m a second-generation operator,” he said. His parents came to the United States from South Korea in 1979, and the first business they opened was a convenience store. “I joke that my current career was forty years in the making, since I helped my brother manage my parents’ chain of five to six locations,” he said.

When the opportunity to build his own store from the ground up presented itself, he took advantage and opened the first Let’s Go Market location in 2023.

For Kim, it took self-growth to transition into his role as a store owner. “I have a real big advantage because I essentially grew up in the industry, but it took a paradigm shift from thinking ‘why do I have to do this?’ to ‘I have all this wealth of knowledge and experience, so why wouldn’t I do this?’” he said.

When Kim first opened Let’s Go Market, he listened to his customers before rushing to fill the shelves with generic items. “I wanted to match the needs of our customers to what we stocked,” he said. “While I stocked the c-store essentials, I deliberately left about 30% of my shelf space vacant to put in what my customers wanted.” A majority of his customers asked for an expanded automotive department, and when he increased the items in that section, he found it brought in a higher dollar amount per transaction.

They also asked for Hispanic brands of ice cream, chips, candies, laundry detergent and other sundries. “I realized I was filling a huge need and the items have been very popular,” Kim said. He also partnered with a Mexican bakery to deliver sweet treats three times a week and changed his coffee program to match what his customers wanted to drink.

Continue reading “A C-Store 40 Years in the Making” in the September 2025 issue of NACS Magazine.