Standing out and fitting in: Korean coffee entrepreneurs’ strategies for survival

Prompted by the meteoric increase in the number of coffee shops in South Korea over the past two decades, this article explores the various strategies that coffee shop entrepreneurs in Seoul adopt to succeed in one of the world’s most saturated markets. Grounding our study in Bourdieusian notions of taste and distinction as well as contemporary research into coffee shop culture and social class identity, we conducted two rounds of semi-structured interviews with coffee entrepreneurs in Seoul (N = 9). Our interviews are supplemented by written field notes from coffee shops in two different neighborhoods in Seoul. The results show that most coffee entrepreneurs strive to distinguish their shop from other coffee shops via: 1) unique and innovative menu items; and 2) the physical space and atmosphere (bun-wi-gi) of the coffee shop itself. In addition, despite the ubiquity of coffee in Korean culture today, many Korean coffee entrepreneurs still see coffee as a foreign drink that needs to be specially adapted to Koreans’ tastes.