This store is located in Seongsu, Seoul. In the past, the area was clustered with closed factories, but now it is rapidly turning into a trendy spot after young artists started moving in. Recently, there are an increasing number of stylish stores in this neighborhood. Blue Bottle Coffee Seongsu Store, combined with the headquarter and roastery, is Blue Bottle Coffee’s first store in Korea opened in this area.

It is a four-story building with a basement and the store occupies three floors from the basement to the second floor, using the basement as a cafe, the first floor as a roastery and a coffee beans storage room, and the second floor as an office. One can see the entire coffee preparation process from bringing in green coffee beans to roasting to brewing in this building.

The main reason for locating a cafe in the basement is that the first floor faces a major road with heavy traffic and the view from inside is not very pleasant, in addition to the fact that the basement has high ceilings. Part of the first floor slab was punched out to create a cafe with a double height ceiling in the basement.
Taking advantage of the fact that stainless steel is less expensive in Korea than in Japan, we used stainless steel to make various elements including side walls of counters, stairs, handrails, and doors. In addition, bricks are a historic construction material used to build many buildings in Seongsu and this building is also finished with bricks.