Kim Yong Soon has become best known to generations of her bar regulars in Chicago by one name: Maria.
Maria Marszewski emigrated from South Korea to the South Side of the city with her new husband 60 years ago. She would be left a widow with their two young sons to raise and his bar to run just 13 years later.
The licensed home beautician would first become a modest real estate mogul, eventually buying a strip mall where she built her own fantastical restaurant.
Then she bought a building in Bridgeport, taking over an existing bar and small attached liquor store 40 years ago.
When she was ready to reinvent herself again, the entrepreneur reluctantly handed over the business to her sons, who transformed the space and the future of a community.
They opened Maria’s Packaged Goods & Community Bar in 2010.
The following interview is the latest in our food icon series. It was conducted with assistance from her younger son, Ed Marszewski, president of Marz Community Brewing and founding director of the Public Media Institute, and has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: What is your full name (birth and now)?
A: “Kim Yong Soon and Maria Marszewski.”
In Korean naming convention, her last name was Kim. A Catholic priest gave the young Yong Soon her new Christian name, Maria, when she was confirmed around 11 years old.
Q: When were you born?
A: “Feb. 7, 1937.”
Q: Where were you born?
A: “Pusan, Korea.”
The second-largest city in South Korea has been known as Busan since 2000.
Q: When did you come to Chicago?
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A: “1966.”
Maria Kim met James Marszewski in the city of Chuncheon, South Korea, a scenic natural destination, and they married in 1964.
Q: What was your first job?
A: “Beautician.”
She worked as a beautician in South Korea, then earned her cosmetology license here in the early ’70s, opening a home basement beauty shop specializing in hair cuts, color and perms at 104th and Whipple streets in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood.After James Marszewski died at 39 in 1979, she ran his bar, Jim’s 31st Street Inn, at 31st Street and Harding Avenue in Little Village, before selling it to a family friend.
Her real estate investments included buying a strip mall at Harlem Avenue and 71st Street in Bridgeview, the area now known as Little Palestine, where she built her own restaurant.
House of Kim opened briefly in the mid-’80s, offering Korean and Japanese food with a sushi bar and tea rooms, plus prime rib steaks, according to her younger son.
“Gamera the turtle lived in the pond with a bridge,” he added about the reptile named after a fictional Japanese giant monster film character similar to Godzilla.
Q: What is your business’s full name?
A: “Maria’s Packaged Goods & Community Bar.”
The Kaplan family founded what was Kaplan’s Liquors in 1939. Maria bought the building and then took over Kaplan’s in 1986.
Regulars called it Maria’s, and her sons grew up behind the bar. They took over and transformed the space, finally formally dedicating the business to their mother in 2010.
Q: What was your business title?
A: “Owner.”
She was and still is Mom, The Boss and The Duchess of Bridgeport, according to her younger son. Her older son, Mike Marszewski, now owns Maria’s.
Q: What is your bestselling or signature item?
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A: “Marz Beer and the Korean Polish sausage.”
Makowski’s Real Sausage Co., founded in Bridgeport and now in Lansing, makes the KoPo sausage using chef Won Kim’s recipe. He serves the sausage at Kimski, the bar’s attached creative casual restaurant that’s celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The Maria’s Standard on the menu features a sausage topped with seasonal house-made kimchi (recently with ramps), soju mustard and scallions on a brioche bun plus a side of fries.
Marz Community Brewing makes the bar’s bestselling beer in McKinley Park. Fan favorites change between Jungle Boogie, a pale wheat ale, and Chug Life, a light lager, depending on the season, said Ed Marszewski, who co-founded the brewery in 2018.
Q: What is your most memorable moment?
A: “Knowing I could feed and educate my kids running my own business.”
The Duchess of Bridgeport still comes by to hang out at her namesake bar four days a week from Thursday through Sunday.
Q: As a Chicago food icon, what are a few words of wisdom you could share with the next generation?
A: “In order to run a good business, do not drink too much.”
Maria does not drink alcohol, and never has. She loves hot black tea or coffee, said her younger son.
Maria’s Packaged Goods & Community Bar, 960 W. 31st St., 773-890-0588, community-bar.com
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