Meet Daniel Chin | Kawaii House Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Daniel Chin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Daniel, what is the most important factor behind your success?
Customer satisfaction is probably the most important factor we could think of. Without our customers, we are a failing business obviously. We go above and beyond in providing the best customer service possible. It’s reflected in our many excellent reviews (google and yelp) within 2 months of grand opening.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Our store is actually a combination of two different and popular business concepts: 1) claw machine arcade and 2) Japanese merchandise and collectibles. If you have visited some Asian influenced shopping locations, such as Little Tokyo in LA, some malls in San Gabriel Valley and Orange County, you’d find a lot of stores selling the popular merchandise we have at Kawaii house. We are the first store in Kearney Mesa area that brought in this combined concept.

The thing we most proud of is our great customer service. We treat all of our customers as part of our family. Some of customers have become our good friends. Our main goal is to spread the joy to anyone that came to our store. We believe everyone who visited our store felt that way the moment they stepped into the door.

Another thing we are proud of is to provide the customers with great quality and hard to find merchandise. We carry a lot of sought after, popular, and one of the kind merchandise, such as blind boxes and others. Most of the items we sell are not available in Kearney Mesa area.

It has been a long and hard journey for us. This is our second store location. Our first store is in Murrieta, CA. Even though it has not been that successful, we did learn a lot from it. Finding a good location is everything for this type of business. Being in an Asian community is definitely a must.

Also, being small business owners, we had to do pretty much everything ourselves – all the tedious and strenuous works. We did not have a lot of capital to start this business. So we had to do most of the hard work ourselves.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If they would like to stay around San Diego, then below is my proposed itinerary.

Day 1: San Diego Zoo and Balboa park.
Day 2: Petco Park, USS Midway museum, Fish Market SD, Cabrillo National monument, and Old Town SD,
Day 3: Sea World
Day 4: Lego Land
Day 5: Beach day – La Jolla, Coronado, etc.
Day 6: Asian inspired adventure in Kearney Mesa. Korean BBQ, Korean fried chicken, sushi, claw machine and shopping at Kawaii House, Ax throwing, and lastly, Karaoke night with drinks.
Day 7: Family time at the house before a return trip.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Our children.

It’s all started when we were driving home and our 2 kids came up with a great business idea. “Let’s open a claw machine store”, they said. “Also sell some super cute stuff”. So we thought: the hybrid business concept is such an awesome idea. We’ve already been spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars at other claw machine places and other cute hobby retail stores.

Our goal is to share the happiness and joy to the community.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kawaii_house_sd/?hl=en

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/kawaii-house-san-diego

Other: https://maps.app.goo.gl/CURuBXj1yzyGhztq6