Starbucks The Bukhansan, a great place even when it rains. [Photo by Reporter Im Yo-hee]

The rooftop photo zone featuring a Starbucks stone marker that resembles a mountain summit peak marker. [Photo by Reporter Im Yo-hee]

The rooftop enveloped in mist. [Photo by Reporter Im Yo-hee]

Exterior of Starbucks The Bukhansan. [Photo provided by Starbucks]

It’s the same Starbucks menu you always have, but it tastes even better at The Bukhansan. [Photo by Reporter Im Yo-hee]

For modern people, a cafe is more than just a place to drink coffee. It is a sanctuary between home and the workplace. It serves as a "third space" and a psychological escape for busy individuals.

At home, you might feel tempted to just lie down or notice all the chores; at work, you might feel suffocated. A cafe is that space somewhere in between, where you can loosely maintain control over yourself.

Starbucks The Bukhansan, located in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul, takes this one step further. It is situated right between home, work, and nature. It’s a place that offers both the comfort of personal autonomy and a healing experience by bringing the beauty of nature into the fold.

On the boundary of home, work, and nature

Opened in 2023, this location consists of two floors and a rooftop, with a total of 253 seats. Despite being one of the largest Starbucks branches, it is so popular that you might find yourself tearfully heading to a nearby cafe on weekends when there are no seats available.

Stepping onto the rooftop, the Bukhansan mountain range unfolds like a panorama. The mountain ridges you see before you are so vast and magnificent that they feel surreal, almost like sitting in an IMAX theater. For Seoulites accustomed to glancing at mountains from afar, the view of Bukhansan from this cafe feels less like "just another mountain" and more like a profound encounter.

Bukhansan is renowned for its grand topography among the mountains near Seoul. It has long been called Seoul’s "Jinsan." In Feng Shui, a Jinsan (鎮山) refers to the central mountain located behind a city, believed to suppress negative energy and protect the region; the character "Jin" (鎭) literally means to suppress or stabilize.

The rooftop features a Starbucks stone marker that resembles a mountain summit marker—this is the famous photo zone of the Bukhansan branch. Guests are often more focused on capturing the perfect shot than on their coffee.

Whether it’s mothers who can’t fathom hiking due to sore legs, or young people too busy to visit the actual mountains, everyone can leave a commemorative photo at the summit of this "Bukhansan"—or rather, at the summit of Starbucks The Bukhansan. With just the price of a cup of coffee, you can be embraced by the magnificent spirit of Bukhansan without leaving the city. Could there be a more cost-effective weekend outing?

It’s okay to get lost in the mist

The value of this spot shines even brighter during the current rainy season. You can have the unique experience of sipping coffee amidst the mist and rain. As white mist (or perhaps rain clouds) wraps around the mountain waist, giving Bukhansan a mystical aura, the mountain seems even more massive precisely because parts of it are hidden from view.

At times, the clouds are so thick that the whole world feels like a white wall. If you were actually in the mountains, this could be a dangerous situation where you might get lost. However, there’s no such worry here. This is a Starbucks—spacious, close to the city, and safe even in the middle of a rainstorm.

One floor down from the rooftop is the second floor, where you can enjoy Bukhansan like a three-dimensional landscape painting. In fact, the window-side seats on the second floor are the most popular spots in the building. While it may lack the dramatic flare of the rooftop, it offers the comfort of constant temperature and humidity, allowing you to keep the view of Bukhansan right in front of you all year round. Aside from plush sofas, there is little interior decoration—because the mountain is the protagonist of the space.

The mini-garden you encounter upon entering the first floor also hosts its own view of Bukhansan. In a way, you are surrounded by two beautiful, three-dimensional landscape paintings.

The architecture is as beautiful as the scenery itself. The protruding surfaces of the layered bricks are said to express the natural landscape of Bukhansan as it changes with the seasons. As the days grow longer or shorter, the appearance of the building continuously shifts.

At Starbucks The Bukhansan, you can enjoy coffee or lose yourself in a book. You can zone out, log out of your "office worker" persona, and log back into your true self. To become someone who is simply "being"—a single cup of coffee with Bukhansan in front of you is all it takes.

Reporter Im Yo-hee