Mr Lee's diner, a cheap-and-cheerful fried chicken shop near central Seoul, has held firm against raising prices for a decade and a half.
But now, Mr Lee says, Indonesia's cooking oil export ban and its costly squeeze on prices have been the last straw: he expects to follow larger chains of South Korea's ubiquitous "chimaek" fried chicken-and-beer outlets that are raising prices, even if he risks losing customers.
