Many Drexel students lined up for free drinks from April 1 through April 3 at the grand opening of Boba King, the new boba tea and coffee shop on campus.
Moses Choi, Dustin Park and Sun Son decided to found Boba King after realizing that there were not many places in Philadelphia where they could get high-quality drinks other than coffee, as they could in their native Korea.
“Our goal is to give a little happiness to students returning to campus, serving them with a smile and quality specialty drinks,” Choi said in a phone interview.
Boba King is different from other boba tea stores around University City. Instead of focusing their menu only on boba, they also have milkshakes, coffees, smoothies, fruit teas and honey bread, Choi said.
Students lined up for hours for their special giveaway offer of free drinks during the first three days of Boba King’s inauguration on campus. The store is located at 3200 Chestnut Street, where Joe Coffee used to be.
“The boba place is really cute and pretty, and their drinks are pretty good especially considering they were giving them all out for free,” said Miyo Imai, a third-year Computer Science major.
Imai was excited about the new boba store on campus and thought Boba King offered different things from other similar stores in the area.
“I tried going on Thursday after work, which was their first day doing their promotion, but the line was so long that my friends and I ended up heading out — I had some friends say they had been in line for over an hour and a half, and they weren’t even in the door yet,” Imai said.
She returned on Saturday morning 20 minutes before opening and was able to get her drinks, being the third in line.
“I already went back once after their grand opening to try something else,” Imai said. “I think when the weather gets a bit nicer, Boba King will be getting a lot of the business, since it has nice seating and is cuter.”
Choi said they designed Boba King following the style of Korean cafes, but right now, they only allow 25 percent of seating capacity.
“Once we are settled, we have three main goals: to serve premium high-quality drinks, use natural and organic ingredients, and to make a scholarship for Drexel students to give back to the community we are in,” Choi said.
Boba King is open all days of the week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.