Richard Rhee; Entrepreneur Built Korean Supermarket Chain

Richard Rhee, owner of the California Market supermarket chain, has died. He was 62.

A celebrated and controversial entrepreneur, Rhee died Sunday of lung cancer. He started his supermarket chain in 1986, turning a former Mayfair Market on Western Avenue into a Koreatown landmark by converting it into a massive Korean foods store.

Rhee’s market prospered along with Southern California’s burgeoning Korean immigrant community, enabling him to open five other stores in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

While Rhee’s supermarkets were emblematic of the growth of Korean immigrant communities, Rhee himself became a symbol of that community’s imperiled state during the 1992 riots. Rhee held off would-be looters at his store at gunpoint, and news images of his armed vigil were published and broadcast worldwide.

In recent years, Rhee, who lived in Hancock Park, was charged with thousands of tax and labor law violations at his stores. Rhee’s alleged civil and criminal violations included accusations of sales tax evasion and citations for cash pay, overtime and minimum wage violations as well as demanding wage kickbacks from workers.

Rhee came to Los Angeles from Korea in 1959 to attend UCLA.

While in college, he worked as a waiter and swept floors and washed dishes in Little Tokyo and Chinatown but he ended up quitting school.

Rhee said he lived on bread and hot dogs and had saved nearly $100,000 by the early 1970s. With his savings, Rhee began to buy and refurbish old houses for resale.

Rhee then bought a women’s clothing factory, which he sold in 1986 to start his first grocery store.