Lillia Callum-Penso covers food for The Post and Courier Greenville. She spent over a decade as a reporter with The Greenville News where she covered business and food and won awards for her feature, profile and food writing. Outside work, Lillia can usually be found running to keep up with her very energetic twins.

You could say Robin Byun and Daniel Kim's new food venture, Kups, was one part destiny and one part DoorDash.

The two friends. who opened their Korean food truck two weeks ago, met when Byun was Kim's DoorDasher. Kim's late-night order from Wendy's couldn't be fulfilled because the store was closed, and so Byun sent a message to let him know.

"I saw the name and I said 'Kim,' that sounds Korean," Byun recalled with a grin. "So, I straight up asked him, 'are you Korean?'"

Kim responded in Korean.

The rest is history.

Now the two are delivering their own food in the form of Kups. The food truck, which is permanently parked at 1500 Wade Hampton Blvd., next door to Bridge City Coffee, serves traditional Korean street food, rice bowls filled with sweet potato noodles, kimchi, veggies and a variety of proteins.

Thus far, the most popular item has been the Phoenix Kup, which comes with a spicy marinated chicken, rice, corn, dried seaweed and salad greens.

The Oink Kup features spicy fried marinated pork and the Tuyo Kup features tuna. For vegetarians, there is the Vege Kup, which has tofu.

Besides the food, the Kups menu is notable for its price point. Well, the Bulgogi Kup is $12.99, but everything else clocks in at $9.99 or less.

The food truck idea evolved somewhat organically but also out of a hunger to share Korean food at a reasonable price. When Byun was in school at Bob Jones University, he said his budget was minimal, so he found it frustrating that dining out at many local Asian restaurants was so expensive.

"As a student I didn't earn any money, so it was a lot of pressure moneywise," Byun said. "And me, as an Asian myself, I make food at home and I know it doesn't cost that much."

Kups is designed to keep prices moderate. The two owners have designed their menu with a streamlined approach, putting extra effort in on the front end to source, prep and cook ingredients to keep prices low. They also save in overhead costs with the food truck and by keeping it parked.

While initial thoughts were to create a mobile operation, the two quickly realized that doing so would quickly take a toll on the vehicle.

Since Kups is parked permanently, Byun and Kim pay the business owner a monthly rent to park.

The Kups menu centers on rice bowls, each rooted in traditional flavors and techniques. All sauces, marinades, kimchi, etc. is scratch made in the commissary kitchen Byun and Kim use for prep.

Since neither came from restaurant families, they leaned on their church community to find a lot of the recipes, amassing a sizeable collection from the "Korean grandmas," of the congregation.

The next step was then cooking, testing and streamlining to find the best fit in terms of balance, spice and flavor.

One recipe that is not traditional is their kimchi. Kups serves up a vegan variety, while most recipes call for fish sauce.

"We couldn't even ask the church ladies," Byun said of their kimchi recipe. "We took hard time to make it vegetarian."

Before they met, Byun and Kim shared a similar path. Both grew up in Korean families. Byun was born in New York but lived most his life, save for a few years of elementary school, in Korea. He landed in Greenville in 2017 to attend Bob Jones University.

Kim was born in South Korea and came to the U.S. at the age of 22 to attend college.

Both men studied education; Byun early childhood and Kim Christian education.

In college, Kim got a part-time job at Tsunami. He'd spent time cooking while serving his mandatory two years in the military in Korea, and he found he loved the culinary process and the way food made people happy.

He lived and worked in Myrtle Beach for years before being called back to Greenville, where he was promoted to executive chef at Tsunami and then at Otto Izakaya.

But by the time he met Byun, he'd already begun to feel the pull to do something of his own.

"I think having my own business is making me happier and enjoying my job," Kim said. "Working at other restaurants, even if they pay me a lot of money, it's not my business. It is limited."

With Kups, the two friends and business partners are bringing their own vision to life, and it is a vision they hope to grow. The goal is to evolve the concept into a brick-and-mortar space and eventually into a franchise model with locations all over.

The root will always be scratch-made Korean rice bowls, but the menu may grow as the business does.

In addition to the rice bowls, the current menu also features Kolpop chicken and kolpop mando, easily transportable snacks that Byun grew up with in Korea. Essentially, it is a cup of soda that comes fitted with a small cup of either bite-sized fried chicken pieces or savory fried dumplings atop.

Moving forward, Kim and Byun hope to expand the business into doing meal service and catering for businesses.

"We want to do this style of food even when we open a restaurant," Byun said. "We want to keep it original and to have a story."

Kups food truck is located at 1500 Wade Hampton Blvd., next to Bridge City Coffee. Hours are 11 a.m. - 10 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday; 5 - 10 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday.

For more follow @kupsofficial or visit www.kupskoreancups.com