When I thought of the concept of this snippet, I thought it would be short, reference Starbucks and Costco and a certain café and a teriyaki place, include a few pictures, and call it a day. But… it turns out Seattle has infiltrated Seoul more than I thought! So in the end, I have 55 pictures I found to present to you, showcasing the times where I saw Seattle in Seoul.
Let’s start with the simple ones, Starbucks and Costco. I did a long review of Starbucks in Korea over ten years ago now, with two appended updates, and you all know the story of the green siren’s worldwide coffee domination. And in that post, I noted my second visit to a Seoul Starbucks in 2010, where I walked outside and saw Starbucks and Costco together, two little bits of Seattle in Seoul, in the Yangjae neighborhood. Well, I happened to be around there earlier this year, looking for the delicious soondae I’d had 13 years prior. (No luck, unfortunately, but there are plenty of other good places all around the country). And, armed with a superior camera, I decided to recreate the picture, despite the tricky night lighting. Here, let’s compare:
Konica Minolta Dimage G530 on the left, Asus Zenfone 9 on the right. I blame the new 2011 Starbucks logo for being too bright white, but the rest of the photo has decent lighting balance and detail. 😉
I’ll add two more pictures from Starbucks for now, even though I have many many more over the years. But these two reference Seattle. One is from the 1000th Starbucks in Korea, and the other is from the 1st Starbucks in Korea around its 20th anniversary.
As for Costco, well, Costco is Costco, but then in Korea, wow, Costco is busy! I decided to go to the Yangjae branch on a Sunday soon after I bought my used Kia Morning in 2010. Korea veterans, can you guess what happened? For it turns out that one million Koreans decide to go shopping on Sundays. Maybe more haha. I picked up my 형 and a few of his family members, and once we got to Yangjae, there was a line of cars wrapped around the block that Costco is at. It took one hour of waiting around the block just to get into the parking garage! Once there I had a good shopping trip and duly noted never again to go to Yangjae Costco on a Sunday.
Over the years of going to various branches of Costco, mostly Yangjae, Goyang/Ilsan, and Sangbong/Mangu, I was pleased to see a few things from Seattle or Washington state be available there. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Dilettante is a local brand of chocolates that used to have a popular “mocha café” on Broadway on Capitol Hill in Seattle. It was a cool place to go for dessert and even chocolate martinis late at night, and had been there since before I was even born. But they seem to have had a downturn a few years ago and closed in 2017. They’re still around with a few branches, and sell their chocolates elsewhere, but they’re not as visible as before.
Clam chowder is of course from Boston / the New England region of the USA, but we Seattleites strongly identify with it too. It’s been a mainstay at Ivar’s, Duke’s, and any seafood place worthy of its salt. On rainy weekends when I was little, my dad and I would often go to Ivar’s Salmon House at the north end of Lake Union, which was three restaurants in one: a fast-food sit down place, a fancy fine-dining restaurant shaped like a traditional Coast Salish longhouse, and a dock behind the restaurant that served as the outdoor seating for the fast-food section. Nowadays the fancy section also has outdoor seating overlooking the lake, though I’m not sure if it was always there and it didn’t register with me because I was young. Or because it rains most of the year in Seattle so it’s only used for 3 months or so? In any case, my dad and I would get fish and chips and a bowl of clam chowder for each of us, and take it to the dock. Eating clam chowder in the rain there is relaxing, sublime, and such a Seattleite thing to do. (Now if only the I-5 bridge above were a little quieter…). In any case, when Costco introduced clam chowder to their branches in Korea, I was thrilled!
In Washington state, we also grow a lot of cherries here… we’re actually the top cherry producing state! Good to know for a state that identifies with apples so much (go Huskies!). So it was great to see Washington state cherries at Costco in Korea, including the local Rainier variety.
Speaking of Rainier, one day I was driving by Costco #1, which was built right beside the actual original first Costco, and Mount Rainier was glorious, as it often is on our rare sunny days in Seattle. I actually captured a quick picture (of course one should NOT do this while driving) and it turned out pretty decent. At 14,411 feet, the peak of The Mountain is about 60 miles from there, as the crow flies.
Then, of course, is the Kirkland brand. Kirkland is a suburb of Seattle on what we call the Eastside, basically the eastern suburbs across Lake Washington from Seattle. (Seattle is surrounded by high mountains AND water on both sides, so knowing the local geography is pretty important if you live here). Costco’s original headquarters were in Kirkland, and that’s the origin of the brand name. You can see that I bought wild Alaskan salmon, something also very important to me as a Seattleite, as salmon is one of our regional dishes, but most of the salmon found in Korea is the inferior, less healthy, and usually environmentally unfriendly farmed type. I got some Kirkland brand cheddar cheese, though I rather would have bought Tillamook, a local Oregon cheesery, but apparently Tillamook doesn’t make enough cheddar to go around. Tillamook had other kinds of cheese for sale at Costco.
Okay, we’re done with Costco. Onto other Seattle connections, big and small.
In the Seohyeon neighborhood of Bundang, I happened across a “Bar Seattle” one day, advertising smoking and strong whisky, two things which I don’t quite associate with Seattle, but oh well. Maybe if you’re talking about Frasier, but we tend to be a beer and wine region.
But teriyaki is definitely Seattle style. And so the restaurant RES2GO in the Jukjeon café street used that fact as a key advertising strategy. Apparently they spread to Seoul a little bit over the years, but then compacted to just one location that I can find, in Gangnam. Their website doesn’t seem to work but they have an Instagram page. But maybe there should be more teriyaki in Korea? Because Seattle-style teriyaki has been greatly influenced by Koreans. It could be a good synergy. In any case, when I found it in September 2011, I was pretty surprised and pleased to find another import from my rainy city.
Was it delicious? …um, yeah, I don’t remember by now, sorry. 😦 But I did go there at least three times, so that says something.
Next up, a little bit of microcomputer software from Seattle, or what is actually Microsoft. The most redeeming quality of almost the worst and least popular operating system released by Microsoft, Windows 8, was its pride in showcasing the Emerald City. Sigh, if only they’d chosen one of the odd releases to associate with Seattle. But still, it made me smile to see the Space Needle, Mount Rainier, and Elliott Bay when walking by a Windows 8 computer.
Microsoft does have offices in Korea, most prominently in a shiny new building across from Gwanghwamun. It’s just a squarish building, and I never bothered to take a picture of it, but a portion of it and the Microsoft logo turned up in a night picture of Gwanghwamun.
See, the logo is peeking out from between the two horizontal posts of the traffic sign. I was more impressed with the new building next to it, and of course the historic gate at the center of the old kingdom.
Now, since Seattle is the birthplace of Boeing, and Boeing is still a major presence here despite how much the company has declined since the McDonnell Douglas merger, let’s fly a little.
One cute calendar that I saw in Hongdae had a little theme of flying and going to Seattle. And a year later, Delta Air Lines made it easier, as they introduced direct flights between Seattle and Seoul. But, I’m a Star Alliance kind of guy, as my dad’s company always used United Airlines for work (back when they were good, the classic Friendly Skies), and we got loads of miles that way, and then I ended up almost always using Asiana Airlines between Seattle and Seoul. And United also has its roots in Seattle, having originally been part of Boeing almost 100 years ago, when they were United Air Lines. So on one of those Asiana flights, back when they had an in-flight magazine, their magazine had an article about bookstores, and one of the ones highlighted was the excellent Elliott Bay Book Company here in Seattle.
When you travel, you need a place to stay, right? What about Hotel Seattle or Motel Seattle? Yes, they do exist, but even though I’m a Seattleite I can’t vouch for their quality. Hotel Seattle is in Gangnam, and is actually… a motel. At least, that’s what I wrote in my caption in 2013, but a light search shows that maybe it isn’t in 2023? But Motel Seattle, aka the Seattle Motel, in the central city of Daejeon, gives it away in its name and garish lighting.
Something a lot less garish would be BLOOMING SEATTLE, in the southern city of Gwangju. It’s a café in the area known as the Culture Complex, but it seems that I only got cake there. But it looks delicious.
Not sure of the association between cake and “WALKING SEATTLE” but I guess it’s a good suggestion to get some exercise after eating dessert.
Back in Seoul, there were two more cafés that I found with the name Seattle:
First, we have Seattle coffee at the northern edge of Myeongdong. It was a strange little place, as the barista / sajangnim had never been to Seattle, there was no seating, and the location also served as a money exchange shop. And then there was Café in Seattle, or CAFE IN SEATTLE, in Jamsil, south of Seokchon Lake. Apparently it was brand new at the time, as a Naver Maps street view from May 2016, just a month before my picture, shows a kimbap shop. And, it didn’t even last three years before it became something else, and then that something else became a sandwich shop. But at least in my picture we can see Lotte World Tower just a few months before construction finally finished, and when it was still tentatively known as Lotte World Premium Tower.
Before we get to the grand finale of one more café, let’s take a look at some more Seattle style and other odds and ends.
So apparently, unbeknownst to yours truly, Seattle has a popcorn business! And this business is called KuKuRuZa, and I ran into their Seattle Style popcorn at Express Bus Terminal. Also Seattle Style was this bicycle that I saw in Maseok, in Namyangju.
At one of my favorite cafés in Seoul, the Coffee Market, I noticed one day that they keep a mini collection of coffee sleeves, as I do. One framed selection was coffee sleeves from Seattle, which definitely warmed my CaféSeaSeo heart. Except… Peet’s is not from Seattle, though it does have indirect connections to Starbucks. Perhaps they didn’t know and had visited Peet’s back when they had a branch in Seattle. But still, nice little decoration.
From one mini-collection to another, let’s look at the paper cup collection at Cavehane Coffee House café in Apgujeong, including one from the excellent and historic Espresso Vivace in Seattle.
Delving deeper into Seattle history, let’s look at two books referencing Seattle, the person and the place.
While I was at the hidden gem 커피한약방 (Coffee Hanyakbang) in Euljiro, I read part of the book Journey of the River, bilingual edition, and one page referenced Chief Seattle’s famous speech.
A year later, I visited Art Major Café in Naebang, and, while looking through an art book, found a section about the Chapel of St. Ignatius at Seattle University. Another nice little reminder of home.
Seattle University… a good transition because the final café for today has its roots in the legendary Café Paradiso on Capitol Hill, just two blocks north of the Seattle University campus. Café Paradiso is long gone, though I was lucky to visit there once when I was young, but it evolved into Caffe Vita, a local chain which was the inspiration for cafe EVANSVILLE in Sangsu, near Hongdae. Eventually, I’ll do a full review of this café in CaféSeaSeo, but for now, let’s just look at all the pictures, and the connections to both Caffe Vita and Seattle.
EVANSVILLE was in an old house that had been remodeled to become a café and gallery. I enjoyed going there a few times alone and with friends. But the concept didn’t survive. After just a few years it became a steak and wine restaurant, and by 2019 it was something else completely. But at least the tasty FELL+COLE ice cream shop is still there just across the way. Still, while it lasted, it was nice to see the Seattle memorabilia and drink the supposedly Caffe Vita coffee.
So! That’s quite a bit of Seattle in Seoul (and Korea), right? I wonder how many other travelers have found bits of their hometowns when they’ve visited Seoul. The world is a beautiful place when we accept cultural exchanges. Hope you enjoyed this overview of one city’s culture and products popping up in another.
Snippets of my Seoul 