The 1st Shop Of Coffee Prince

[Sandra Grady]

Thedrama portrays the story of an unlikely romance between a tomboyish woman, who dresses like a man in order to get work, and a young food empire mogul. It contains homoerotic elements, as the man does not initially know of the tomboy's true sex.[3] Hailed as a hit for its high ratings, the drama received positive reviews from critics and won multiple awards.

Choi Han-gyeol (Gong Yoo) is the grandson of chairwoman Bang (Kim Young-ok) of Dong-in Foods, a company that has a thriving coffee business. He has never had a job and does not care for responsibility. Han-gyeol is hung up on his first love, Han Yoo-joo (Chae Jung-an), who only sees him as a friend. Go Eun-chan (Yoon Eun-hye) is a 24-year-old tomboy who is often mistaken for a guy. Her father died when she was 16 years old and since then she has taken over as the breadwinner in her family. When Han-gyeol and Eun-chan meet, he, not knowing that she is a girl, decides to hire her to pretend to be his gay lover so that he can escape the blind dates arranged by his grandmother.

After getting an ultimatum from his grandmother, Han-gyeol takes over a rundown old coffee shop, later renamed "Coffee Prince," to prove that he's capable, both to his grandmother and to Yoo-joo. In order to attract female customers, he only hires good-looking male employees. Eun-chan, desperate for money, continues to hide her gender to get a job at Coffee Prince.

It aired in the Philippines on GMA Network from January 1 to March 19, 2008 and received high ratings during its run.[11] The series was re-aired with English subtitles on Animax Asia in 2010 and on GMA News TV from September 19 to October 14, 2016 at 11:00pm.

If you've watched the Korean love drama series The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, I'm sure you'd like to visit the coffee shop in that was used as their filming location. That's right, there's a real Coffee Prince Cafe in Seoul!

I'm a big fan of the K-drama TV series too so on a recent trip to South Korea, I made it a point to visit the Coffee Prince Coffee Shop. If you'd like to learn more about the cafe as well as hear about my Coffee Prince Seoul experience, please read on.

The show became very popular not only in Korea but also all over Asia that when the series ended, the coffee shop's owner decided to retain the illustrations on the walls and windows, keep the new layout and use "The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince" as the shop name.

When my husband and I visited the shop in Hongdae, we were happy to find the painting of sunflowers by Han Yoo-Joo on the wall, Go Eun-Chan's doodles on the glass windows, and almost every prop that you can find in the drama. Coffee Prince photos, t-shirts, and other fan merchandise are on display for sale by the bar.

I wish we could have seen the actual cast members working there but instead we were served by a couple of young male and female baristas, possibly students at the nearby University. They were friendly and game enough to pose for pics but of course, nothing beats seeing Eun Chan, Han Kyul and the rest of the TV series characters working behind the bar. There are framed autographs by the cast members hanging on the walls - I guess that's as close as we can get to actually seeing them in person.

My husband ordered Hot Cocoa and I got a Green Tea Latte. They tasted alright, there's nothing spectacular about them, but as expected they were a bit on the steep side. We paid KRW 7,000 (equivalent to around US$ 6) for the latte and KRW 6,500 (equivalent to around US$ 5.65) for the small cup of cocoa but then we figured we don't get to set foot on Seoul a.k.a. K-drama land on a regular basis anyway.

I expected to see Korean tourists there since Coffee Prince has a large fan base in its home country but I was surprised to see American and Japanese tourists taking photos under the signage with their trademark peace ("V") signs. That was when I realized that Coffee Prince and Korean love dramas in general have really made it into the world market. Awesome.

Ah, I see you like K-Dramas. My girl is obsessed with that country, with everything from its food, to its music to the people, and of course the dramas. She actually got me watching this show called 'Innocent Defendant' starring Ji Sung and Um Ki-joon. It was awesome!

To Sunnie and me, summer means Korea, as we usually take a trip back every summer to visit family and experience Korea and the bustle of Seoul. In the summer of 2009, we took a trip to Hongdae to check out Coffee Prince, the coffee shop that was used for one of our all time favorite kdramas and remains open as a functioning business. Now, to avoid confusion, Coffee Prince is actually a chain of coffee shops in Korea that opened up after the success of the kdrama, but the actual coffee shop building that was used as a set on the shoot is not associated with the Coffee Prince chain, it is independent. Confused yet?

Anyway, if you check out our inaugural kdrama awards, you can see how much we love Coffee Prince by the number of awards named after it. We tend to like fun, even sometimes ridiculous dramas, but Coffee Prince is the shining star amongst this sort of kdrama. It captured the essence of summer so well, and it was a great character piece. The show was filled with likable and endearing characters; a kdrama with no bad guys. Coffee Prince just felt like you were hanging out with a bunch of good friends (and a really good soundtrack).

Take Subway Line 2 to Hongik University, and go out of Exit 4 a Turn right at Seven Springs corner and pass the intersection. At the 3-way intersection, turn left. Walk about 100 meters on the road above the playground and walk towards the road on the right side. Walk about 500 meters until you find the coffee shop on the right.

But Young Sook drove us down to Hongdae, and we just drove to the area looking for it. I actually spotted it first, managing to first recognize the street (Eun Chan chasing Han Kyul down the road as he drives away from her) and then the vine covered exterior of the building.

We honestly were pretty geeked out as we drove up. Looking around the exterior, we could see the steps where Eun Chan waited nervously for Han Kyul to arrive, the driveway where he parked his Mini Cooper, and circular glass letting you see into the cafe.

They did not have as many tables set up outside on the deck as they did in the show, and there was a little bit of clutter which the fastidious Han Kyul would never have stood for, but we did get to see the serving cart the staff used to server customers outside the cafe.

Going inside, you immediately can see the entrance to the restroom and the swinging double doors of the kitchen, both of which are easily recognizable from the show. My first reaction was that even though the place is certainly not smaller, it seemed bigger for some reason in the show.

We sat near the curved windows, and were also saw the wine cabinet that Eun Chan restocks while over hearing Han Kyul discussing with his mother and grandmother returning to the US (are you figuring out our level of obsession yet?).

Thinking we had a schoolwork to do in the evening, Mheanne and I planned to roam in the morning instead and be back at school before evening. We could not go that far then, like going out of Seoul. So we planned ahead that we would go to Sanmotungi that day.

We followed the guide written in the book of littlemisshoo (entitled Travel to Korea in K-pop/K-drama Style). We were not really that familiar with the area but the directions given in the book was all clear that it was easy to figure out our way. Also, in the book, we were given the option to write the taxi or walk 700 meters uphill. We did the latter, thinking that we were heading for a coffee shop. We had to burn fats a little so that we would be able to enjoy whatever awaited us after the long walk.

700 meters was really a long stretch of walk. But we did not really have anything to complain about it except that it was raining. We did not expect the weather to be still that cold despite spring making its presence felt.

When we arrived at the coffee shop, we first had to look for a place to settle down. There were many people inside, tourists and locals. We went up to the second floor to look for free chairs and tables, but we did not find any. Even the basement was fully occupied. We then thought of just staying in the balcony instead, but it rained that day, soaking all the chairs and tables. It took us a while to get a good seat because people really come and go when we went there.

After that, we went down again. This time, we were ready to order from the cafe. We had a little difficult time though because the person at the counter knew little English. It was a rather cute experience, since he kept on apologizing for not understanding us.

Compared to other coffee shops, everything off the menu was a little expensive. I forgot the exact amount we spent but we had to pay a little over 20,000 won for three items: iced green tea latte, iced mocha, and a slice of tiramisu. Nevertheless I enjoyed the food while we feel the cozy atmosphere of the cafe. We were able to sit somewhere near the cherry blossoms.

We stayed for over an hour. We brought along our newly bought books to read there. We really enjoyed the feeling of de-stressing a little, drinking coffee while reading a book. Afterwards, we decided to get up and go out of the building to have a little photoshoot. From what Mheanne told me, everything there remained intact just as in the drama itself.

Personally speaking, it was really a wise decision to turn the location into a coffee shop after being used for a Korean drama. Not that I was thinking of profit, but it made fans, and non-fans alike, to get a feel of the place that the drama characters dwelt it. The place reminded of the drama that was aired a couple of years ago. Through this, they were able to relive the story.

Han Sung tries to take her home, but Eun Chan insists on going alone, trying to fake cheer. He gives her money for a taxi, but Eun Chan walks along dejectedly and takes a bus anyway. Her feet hurting from the heels, she digs out a discarded pair of slippers from the trash, and cries.

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