There is a particular kind of crunch that makes everyone at the table look up. Seoul Fried Chicken is now producing plenty of it on Route 37 in Toms River, where the New Jersey-born Korean chicken brand has opened a 1,500-square-foot restaurant a short drive from Seaside Heights.
Inside, roughly 30 seats make it more quick lunch stop than sprawling sit-down restaurant, which fits the food perfectly.
The focus is double-fried chicken, sauced wings, oversized tenders, brioche sandwiches, rice bowls, loaded fries, and enough sweet, spicy, garlicky options to turn a simple chicken order into a minor decision-making crisis.
The Toms River shop joins a growing lineup of SFC locations that started with the flagship in Edison. For Ocean County diners, though, the important part is simpler. There is now another reason to pull off Route 37 before heading toward the barrier island.
Seoul Fried Chicken Lands on Route 37 in Toms River
At 3101 NJ-37, SFC has planted itself on one of the busiest food corridors in Ocean County. The restaurant sits near the Fisher Boulevard area of Route 37, putting it in a convenient spot for Toms River locals while also catching the steady stream of drivers moving toward Seaside Heights and the shore.
The space is about 1,500 square feet and has seating for roughly 30 people, so the setup lands firmly in fast-casual territory rather than full-service dining. Plans have also included adding outdoor seating.
The location matters. Route 37 is the kind of road where dinner decisions often happen at 45 miles per hour, and SFC’s menu makes sense there.
You can grab a sandwich and fries, pick up a box of wings for home, or order enough chicken to feed several people without turning dinner into an hour-long production. Current posted hours for the Toms River location are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week, according to the company’s location listing.
It is also a notably different option from the pizza, burgers, diners, and seafood spots that dominate much of the surrounding Shore food landscape. SFC is built around Korean-style fried chicken, but the format is deliberately familiar.
Wings come in boxes. Sandwiches arrive on brioche buns. Fries can be ordered on the side or buried under chicken and sauce. There are sliders, tenders, combo meals, family boxes, desserts, and drinks.
That combination makes the restaurant easy to understand even if Korean fried chicken is completely new territory. You do not need a game plan. You mostly need to decide how spicy you are feeling.
What Makes Korean Fried Chicken So Crispy
Pick up one of SFC’s wings and the difference is supposed to show up before the sauce even enters the conversation. The brand uses a Korean-style double-frying technique, cooking the chicken twice to create a crisp exterior while keeping the meat juicy underneath.
Founder and chef Hansong Kim built the concept around that approach when SFC launched in March 2021. Double frying is more than restaurant trivia here.
The second trip into the fryer helps remove additional moisture from the exterior, which is why Korean fried chicken can hold onto that brittle, crackly texture even after being coated in sauce. It is especially useful when the sauce is sticky, buttery, or heavy on garlic — exactly the territory SFC likes to explore.
The company says its chicken is fried fresh rather than pulled from the freezer, while the breading and batter are prepared using in-house recipes. Its earlier company materials also describe the chicken as never frozen, non-GMO, and raised without hormones or antibiotics.
That attention to the coating is important because SFC does not hide behind sauce. You can order chicken without one, and several menu formats put the fried pieces front and center.
Wings come in six-, 10-, and 12-piece boxes at the Toms River shop, while five drumsticks run $14.95 and four jumbo crispy tenders cost $16.95. The result is fried chicken that is designed to do two things at once: make enough noise when you bite into it and still stay tender inside.
Add a glaze afterward and the crust becomes the delivery system. That is when Korean fried chicken starts making a lot more sense than simply calling it another plate of wings.
A Menu Packed With Chicken Sandwiches Wings and Loaded Fries
The easiest order might be the six-piece wing box for $10.95. The harder part is stopping there.
Toms River’s menu stretches from straightforward fried chicken to meals that pile on enough toppings to require a fork, and the prices mostly stay in the familiar fast-casual range. Ten wings are $16.95 and 12 cost $19.95, while a four-tender box is $16.95.
There are also two $14.95 mixed bundles: four wings with three drumsticks, or three drumsticks with two tenders. Sandwich people get a couple of different routes.
The $10.95 SFC Signature keeps things simple with fried chicken breast, pickles, SFC mayo, a brioche bun, and your choice of sauce. The $12.95 Southern Chicken adds lettuce, tomato, coleslaw, and comeback sauce.
A sandwich combo with waffle fries is $14.95, while the Southern Chix combo adds a drink for $16.50. Then things get messier in the best way.
The $13.95 SFC Loaded Fries start with waffle fries and add two crispy tenders, cheese sauce, white sauce, comeback sauce, and pickles. The rice bowl goes in the opposite direction, combining white rice with two tenders, corn, pickles, lettuce, coleslaw, and SFC mayo for $11.95.
Smaller sides range from $3.95 coleslaw to $6.95 honey-garlic tater tots tossed with sesame. There are fried vegetable dumplings, mozzarella sticks, K-Jun waffle fries, white rice, and cornbread too.
Groups can skip the ordering negotiations entirely. The $39.99 Signature Box feeds two to three, while larger boxes climb to $79.99 for a family-size mix of wings, drumsticks, tenders, sides, and sauces.
This is not a menu built around one famous item. It is built for the person who wants wings, the person who insists on a sandwich, and the person who somehow ends up eating everybody’s fries.
Homemade Sauces Bring Plenty of Sweet Heat and Bold Flavor
Some fried chicken places give you mild, medium, and hot. SFC apparently looked at that idea and decided it needed several more decisions.
The Toms River menu currently offers a wide spread of sauces and seasonings, including Devil Hot, Mango Habanero, Hot Honey Butter, Sweet & Spicy, Korean BBQ, Creamy Wasabi Pepper, Seoul Buffalo, Soy Garlic, Honey Garlic Butter, Comeback Sauce, Golden Sweet Mustard, spicy comeback, K-Jun powder, white sauce, and lemon pepper powder.
Extra 3.5-ounce sauces are listed at $1.50. That range is where the menu gets fun because the flavors do not all chase the same kind of heat. Mango Habanero brings fruit into the picture.
Hot Honey Butter leans sweet and rich. Seoul Buffalo takes the familiar tangy buffalo formula in a Korean-inspired direction, while Creamy Wasabi Pepper gives you a sharper, more nasal kick instead of pure chile burn.
Soy Garlic is the safer crowd-pleaser when you want savory sweetness without testing your pain tolerance. And then there is Devil Hot, which the menu itself treats as the serious option.
The sauces are a major part of SFC’s identity. The company says they are made from scratch daily, which fits a concept that began with chef-developed recipes rather than a standardized bucket of pre-made glazes.
They also make repeat visits easier to justify. A soy-garlic wing and a mango-habanero wing can feel like completely different orders even though the chicken underneath is prepared the same way.
If you are splitting a box, getting more than one flavor is the smart move. The menu is designed for that kind of comparison, especially with larger chicken boxes that include multiple sauces.
One visit can be safe and garlicky. The next can involve Devil Hot and a glass of something cold nearby.
From Edison to the Jersey Shore
Before Route 37 entered the picture, SFC’s New Jersey story started farther north. The company opened in March 2021, with chef Hansong Kim aiming to build a Korean fried chicken concept around freshly fried chicken, scratch-made sauces, and the recipes and flavors tied to the founders’ childhood memories.
The Edison location at 561 US-1 remains the brand’s flagship. From there, the footprint grew.
SFC’s current location directory lists New Jersey restaurants in Edison, Bound Brook, Somerset, Hackensack, and Toms River, along with a location in Cypress, Texas. The company is also advertising additional Texas expansion.
Toms River feels like an interesting step in that growth because it pushes the brand into a very different part of the state. Edison has one of New Jersey’s deepest and most diverse Asian dining scenes, so Korean fried chicken does not exactly arrive there as a curiosity.
Ocean County is different. The Shore has plenty of international food, but the main commercial strips around Toms River still lean heavily toward longstanding Jersey staples and national fast-casual chains.
Putting SFC on Route 37 introduces its Korean chicken format to a broader mix of year-round residents, summer visitors, families, beach traffic, and people simply trying to figure out what to bring home for dinner. The restaurant also does not require diners to know much about Korean cooking before walking in.
The format travels well because it uses recognizable categories — wings, tenders, sandwiches, fries — and changes the technique and flavors rather than the entire dining experience. That may explain why the jump from Edison to the Jersey Shore feels less like an experiment and more like the next logical stop.
Seoul Fried Chicken Has Big Plans for the Toms River Community
Opening the doors was only part of the plan for the Toms River restaurant. Managing partner Muhammad Ali has said the location wants to get involved with local youth activities and charities while expanding its catering business, giving the operation a role beyond serving walk-in traffic on Route 37.
Outdoor seating has also been part of the longer-term vision for the roughly 30-seat restaurant. Some of the menu ideas discussed around the opening are already visible in the restaurant’s current online ordering lineup.
Gelato shakes now appear alongside the chicken, with flavors including Dubai chocolate, pistachio, Ferrero Rocher, Kinder, Lotus, caramel, vanilla, and mango sorbet. Most are listed from $9.49.
Gelato scoops are also available in flavors such as Oreo, coffee, lemon, pistachio, and Dubai chocolate, while smoothies and freshly squeezed lemonade round out the newer drink-and-dessert side of the menu.
That gives the Toms River shop room to become more than a grab-a-box-and-leave chicken counter, especially during Shore season when frozen desserts and cold drinks have obvious appeal.
Catering may be an even bigger local opportunity. SFC already builds its menu around shareable boxes, and the Toms River location offers packages ranging from the $39.99 Signature Box for two or three people to a $79.99 Family Box intended for five or six.
For a restaurant that arrived with a recognizable fast-casual formula, the local ambitions are refreshingly practical: feed families, handle group orders, support community organizations, and keep adding reasons for people nearby to know the name.
The chicken may have started the conversation, but SFC seems interested in sticking around long enough to become part of the Route 37 routine.