Starbucks has opened a new coffee shop in South Korea, where customers can sip their lattes and view a quiet North Korean mountain village in the distance.
On Friday (November 28), the American chain opened its newest location in an observatory at Aegibong Peace Ecopark near the city of Gimpo — about 31 miles northwest of Seoul, South Korea, and less than a mile from North Korean territory.
However, customers must pass a military checkpoint before entering the observatory, which overlooks North Korea’s Songaksan mountain, according to The Associated Press.
Officials from the South Korean city of Gimpo explained that opening the Starbucks was part of efforts to develop its border facilities as a tourist destination, saying the coffee shop symbolizes “robust security on the Korean Peninsula through the presence of this iconic capitalist brand.”
The observatory is one of the main attractions at Aegibong park, which was built on a hill that was a fierce battle site during the Korean War. The website describes the park as a “symbolic place representing peace and harmony.”
Visitors at the Starbucks can not only catch a glimpse of North Korea, but also the Jogang River that runs between the observatory and the border town of Kaepung in the North.
“I wish I could share this tasty coffee with the people in North Korea,” Baek Hea-soon, a 48-year-old Gimpo resident, told Reuters at the Starbucks opening.
As of 2024, there are nearly 2,000 Starbucks coffee shops across South Korea, according to SCK Company, which operates Starbucks in the country through a licensing deal.
Gimpo and other South Korean border cities like Paju have been trying to develop their border sites as tourist assets, even as tensions grow between the war-divided Koreas.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been trying to raise pressure on South Korea and threatening to attack his rival with nuclear weapons if provoked. North Korea has also engaged in psychological and electronic warfare against South Korea, such as flying trash-laden balloons into the South and disrupting GPS signals from border areas near the South’s biggest airport.
Kaephung county is believed to be one of the possible sites from where North Korea has launched the thousands of balloons over several months.
South Korea’s military said Friday that the North flew dozens more balloons overnight and that some trash and leaflets landed around the capital Seoul and nearby Gyeonggi province.
Additional reporting from AP
