When husband-and-wife-team Sang and Stephanie Lee opened Bigbite Bowl & Burrito in 2024, they aimed to bring bulgogi and other staple Korean dishes to the McKinney area.

Following 25 years of owning and operating sandwich shops in Washington D.C. and Baltimore, the couple retired and moved to the Dallas area to live near their daughter, Zoe Lee. However, within a year of relocating, the Lees abandoned their retirement plan and launched Bigbite.

On the menu

Zoe Lee said the eatery’s top three menu items are the bulgogi bowl, Bigbite bowl and bibimbop bowl.

A bulgogi bowl features rice, bulgogi—a marinated Korean style beef brisket—with fried kimchi, lettuce, grilled vegetables, egg and spicy mayonnaise. The Bigbite bowl is the same as a bulgogi bowl with two fried dumplings added to the dish.


“Bulgogi represents Korean food,” Zoe Lee said. “A lot of new customers search for bulgogi on Google and come here because we sell it.”

Bibimbop bowls consist of rice, fried kimchi, grilled vegetables, steamed spinach, steamed soybean sprout, egg and Korean spicy sauce.

Other crowd pleasers are fried dumplings and ddukbokki which is a dish consisting of rice cakes, fish cakes, boiled egg and green onions in a sweet and spicy sauce. Bigbite serves a variety of Korean cuisine burritos including bulgogi, chicken teriyaki, chili shrimp and more.

The background


Sang and Stephanie Lee moved to America from Korea in 2001. Zoe Lee said the Bigbite menu features Korean dishes her mother packed in hers and her brother’s school lunch boxes. She said traditional Korean meals are served in multiple dishes, but that wasn’t conducive to school lunches.

“They decided to put everything in one cup—rice, protein, veggies and egg,” Zoe Lee said. “There is something like this sold in Korea in front of schools and libraries—on the street—for busy students and workers.”

Zoe Lee said her parents, who are in their 60s, divide responsibilities for the restaurant. Sang Lee does all the grocery shopping and preps the ingredients Stephanie Lee needs for the recipes she creates from scratch at the restaurant.

“She makes everything from scratch, even the kimchi, she makes everything here,” Zoe Lee


Quote of note

The Lees started the business with experience in the restaurant industry, but without any familiarity of the community.

“They kind of worried at first because they didn't know about Texas or if customers would like Korean food,” Zoe Lee said. “But then the customers loved it so my parents were so happy. They always read the reviews and are so happy.”