Gives "Village" Rare To North Korea, This Starbucks Outlet Is Visited By More Than 120,000 People

Starbucks outlet illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/David Howard)

JAKARTA - Starbucks outlets in South Korea that offer rare views to North Korea have attracted more than 120,000 visitors, both domestic and foreign tourists, since opening seven months ago.

The Starbucks outlet for the Gimpo Aegibong Ecopark branch located above the Aegibong Peace Ecopark observatory in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province opened on November 29 last year.

According to Starbucks Korea on Sunday, the outlet has welcomed more than 123,000 visitors to date an average of more than 600 people per day, reported The Korea Times July 15.

Meanwhile, on weekends, the number of visitors almost doubled, often exceeding 1,000 visitors.

This outlet attracts attention as it becomes the only Starbucks in the world where customers can sipping coffee while looking directly at North Korea's territory.

From the cafe panorama window, visitors can look across from the Imjin River to Gaepung Regency, North Hwanghae Province, which is about 1.4 kilometers away.

Located in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), access to this ecological park is limited. Visitors must make online reservations for certain time slots or buy tickets at the counter at the location before passing through the security checkpoint.

Therefore, Starbucks outlets here operate with limited operating hours, from 10.00 to 16.30, shorter than most other branches. The park itself is open from 09.00 a.m. to 17.30 p.m.

CNN highlighted the location in an article in November, describing it as "a place where you can drink coffee while looking inside the hermit kingdom."

This shop is very popular with families, with a higher proportion of food sales, around 30 percent more than locations in general. Its unique location also contributed to a sharp increase in the number of park visitors.

From January to April this year, more than 129,000 people visited the park, which is 68 percent of last year's total annual visits of 190,000.

The number of foreign tourists has also jumped, with an average of 3,300 people per month, more than double the average monthly visit last year which reached 1,300 people.