Espresso lovers can now take pleasure in their darkish roast whereas taking in a view of the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea — because of Starbucks.
The Seattle-based chain of coffeehouses on Friday opened up a brand new location close to Gimpo, South Korea, the place prospects can get a glimpse via the closely militarized border into the north.
Lots of of java drinkers confirmed up for the grand opening of the chain’s latest retailer in an observatory close to the town, which lies some 31 miles northwest of the capital Seoul and near the DMZ.
Guests should go via a navy checkpoint on the best way to the Starbucks outlet, though it’s in a lesser identified and fewer militarized space than extra fashionable vacationer spots alongside the border such because the Panmunjom truce village.
On a transparent day, North Korean villagers could be seen from the Starbucks observatory via its telescopes.
Baek Hea-soon, a 48-year-old Gimpo resident, arrived early on Friday to check out the brand new Starbucks outlet.
“I wish I could share this tasty coffee with the people in North Korea,” she instructed Reuters.
Lower than half a mile from the DMZ is Kaephung, a propaganda village that’s believed to be largely uninhabited and whose constructions have been as soon as used to mount loudspeakers that blasted politically-charged messages into South Korea.
The Han River, designated as “neutral waters” between the 2 nations, lies lower than a mile away, operating between the observatory and Kaephung within the north.
Starbucks, with its international recognition, might change the border space’s “dark and depressing” picture, Gimpo Mayor Kim Byung-soo mentioned.
“This place could now become an important tourist destination for security (and) peace that can be seen as young, bright and warm, as well as garnering global attention,” Kim instructed reporters.
Starbucks is ubiquitous throughout South Korea, with 1,980 shops as of the third quarter of 2024, in response to Starbucks Espresso Korea Firm, now generally known as SCK Firm, which operates Starbucks within the nation via a licensing deal.
In 2021, Starbucks offered its stake in Starbucks Korea to SCK Firm and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC.
The buffer separating the 2 Koreas has change into an unlikely draw for international and native vacationers regardless of heightened tensions on the peninsula in recent times.
The 2 Koreas are nonetheless technically at conflict after a three-year battle led to a 1953 armistice. A peace treaty has by no means been signed.
In current months, tensions have additionally grown over balloons of trash floated from North Korea, which Pyongyang says are a response to balloons carrying anti-regime leaflets despatched by activists within the South.
North Korea blew up inter-Korean roads and rail strains on its facet of the border final month, whereas Seoul warned Pyongyang that any use of its nuclear weapons would spell the tip of the North Korean regime.
North Korea has over current many years suffered severe meals shortages, together with a famine within the Nineteen Nineties, typically exacerbated by pure disasters reminiscent of floods that injury harvests.
With Put up Wires
