"If I could start over, said Ko Jang-su, I would do anything but open a cafe. Mr. Ko's cafe is one of the busiest coffee shops in his densely populated neighborhood of Seoul. Still, on weekday mornings it sits empty. It is not hard to understand why: Mr. Ko has more than 50 competitors nearby, and in South Korea, that is hardly unusual."
"In Seoul, the density of cafes rivals that of Paris. The passion for coffee — one national survey suggested that Koreans now reach for it more often than rice — has bred a fantasy among some hoping to cash in and escape the 9-to-5 grind: Why not open a cafe of their own? The trend caught on fast, as trends often do in South Korea. Thousands of coffee shops open each year. But just as quickly, thousands disappear."
Seoul and other South Korean cities have experienced a rapid cafe boom, with the number of shops nationwide doubling over six years to about 80,000 for a population of 51 million. Dense neighborhoods can host dozens of nearby competitors, leaving even busy cafes empty during slow weekday mornings. The boom is driven by consumer demand for trendy drinks, desserts and interior design and by entrepreneurs seeking alternatives to a difficult job market. Thousands of cafes open each year, but market saturation results in many closures. Coffee spread from a luxury to mainstream after exposure to instant coffee in U.S. military rations following the Korean War.
Read at www.nytimes.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]