If you’ve never done all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ, the first question is obvious: how does this even work? You sit down, a server fires up the built-in gas grill in the center of your table, and you order off a laminated menu that lists maybe sixty or seventy items — marinated short rib, pork belly, spicy chicken, shrimp, cheese corn, rice cakes. Everything comes out raw or lightly prepped. You cook it yourself. You order as many rounds as you want. Two hours, flat rate.
Gen Korean BBQ House on South Rainbow Boulevard, just north of the 215, runs around $27–$32 per person depending on when you go — lunch is cheaper, dinner slightly more, and they add a few dollars for premium cuts like wagyu or prime beef options. There’s a separate charge for drinks. For the volume and quality of food that ends up on your table over a typical visit, it’s a reasonable deal, especially for a group of three or four people who know how to pace themselves.
The cuts worth ordering first: the chadol (thin beef brisket) cooks in under a minute and develops a little char on the edges that pairs well with the sesame oil dipping sauce. The spicy pork is aggressive enough to actually mean something. The LA galbi — flanken-cut short rib marinated in a soy-sweet sauce — is what most people come back for, and rightfully so. Order two rounds of it before you move on to anything else.
The room is big and loud — high ceilings, booths along the walls, communal-style tables down the middle. On a Friday or Saturday night, the wait can run forty-five minutes to an hour. They don’t take reservations for most parties, so the move is to arrive by 5:30 or plan to use the waitlist app they’ll point you toward. Weekday lunches are a different experience entirely: quieter, faster service, and you can actually hear your own conversation.
Service is attentive in the way that’s specific to this format — they swap out your grill grates when the char builds up, keep the banchan (the small side dishes of kimchi, pickled vegetables, and bean sprouts) coming, and don’t make you feel rushed even though turnover is part of how the model works. The two-hour window sounds tight but rarely feels that way unless you’re with a group of slow eaters who want to linger over drinks.
A few practical notes: the ventilation hoods above each table do their job reasonably well, but you’ll leave smelling like smoke and garlic. That’s not a complaint, just a fact. Wear something you don’t mind airing out afterward. Also, the parking lot at the Rainbow Promenade center can fill up on weekend evenings — come from the eastern entrance off Rainbow rather than the main retail drive and you’ll usually find something closer.
Gen is a chain, originally out of California, and this location doesn’t pretend otherwise. But the product is consistent, the value holds up, and it’s one of the few sit-down dinner options in this part of Enterprise where feeding four people well doesn’t automatically become a $200 decision. If you go once and learn the ordering rhythm, you’ll understand why there’s almost always a line out front.
