Roy Choi Brings ‘Best Friend’ To OCVIBE For Its California Debut

For a restaurant that feels so unmistakably Southern Californian, it’s kind of wild that Chef Roy Choi’s acclaimed restaurant, Best Friend, has only existed in Las Vegas.

That’s finally changing.

After years of drawing crowds inside Park MGM, Best Friend is making its California debut when it opens at Anaheim’s OCVIBE district in fall 2027. It’ll only be the restaurant’s second permanent location, but in many ways, it’ll be its first real homecoming.

For Chef Choi, Orange County isn’t just another market to expand into. It’s part of his origin story.

Long before Kogi rewrote the rules of food trucks and street food, Choi spent part of his childhood in Anaheim, where his parents owned a Korean restaurant and where his own relationship with cooking first took shape.

“Orange County has always been an important part of my life and my career,” Choi said in a statement. “I’ve always wanted to do something big in Orange County that represented not only my own roots here, but the voices of all that live here.”

If you’ve ever eaten at Best Friend in Vegas, you know the restaurant isn’t trying to recreate Korean barbecue as much as bottle the feeling of growing up in Southern California. The banchan, the local corner store aesthetic, the hip-hop, the late-night energy—it all feels unmistakably like home for him.

Now it actually gets to be.

Rather than cloning its Las Vegas counterpart, Choi says the Anaheim location will include exclusive menu items, seasonal dishes, local collaborations, and design touches inspired by Orange County’s communities.

The restaurant will anchor OCVIBE, the massive entertainment district taking shape around Honda Center that’s expected to house more than 35 food and beverage concepts by the time the project is complete.

For Southern California diners, though, the headline is much simpler: One of Roy Choi’s most beloved restaurants is finally coming home.