Less than two months after staff voted to unionize, Ann Kim’s namesake Uptown restaurant Kim’s is closing. The James Beard Award-winning chef made the announcement Thursday on Instagram citing “ongoing financial losses.”

August 30 will be the final day of service at Kim’s. After that, gift cards will be honored at Kim’s other restaurants Pizzeria Lola, Hello Pizza, and Young Joni.

Like several other Uptown Minneapolis businesses, Kim’s has faced its share of struggles. Road construction on Hennepin Avenue has made it more difficult to access businesses in the area. Almost a month ago, Kim’s parent company, Vestalia Hospitality, made the decision to shut down the Bronto Bar in the basement of the Uptown restaurant, citing a “decline in business.”

Then, in June, vandals threw a cement slab and paint can through the window of Kim’s. “The physical damage can and will be fixed, but that doesn’t mean the feeling of our space being violated, and our security being threatened,” Kim said on Instagram at the time.

Kim’s previously operated as a Mexican-inspired establishment under the name Sooki & Mimi, until late 2023, when Kim rebranded.

“It got into everyone’s head as ‘the fancy Mexican place,’” Kim told Mpls.St.Paul Magazine dining critic Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl in March. “And it was too hard to change that, so we reopened as a neighborhood restaurant that’s my own Korean American.”