Cafés in Jeonpo Café Street

Getting to Jeonpo from Seomyeon and Jeonpo stations

Jeonpo station, on Line 2, opened in August 2001 and sits one stop east of Seomyeon.⁶ Busanjin-gu's own directions send you out of exit 7 and past the CJ HelloVision building to Jeonpo Catholic Church; from Line 1 at Seomyeon, exits 2, 4, 6 and 8 lead through the underground passage toward Bujeon Library and Noli Maru, about 10 minutes on foot.² Drivers use the private parking lots scattered through the lanes.²

Franklin Coffee Roasters at Dongseong-ro 29 and Cafe Ethan on Jeonpo-daero 176beon-gil are the closest cafés to Jeonpo station, at the southern edge of the district.

From tool alley to café district

In the 1950s and 1960s the Jeonpo area was Busan's largest industrial zone: Cheil Jedang, the sugar business from which Samsung grew, operated here, and Kyungnam Wool Textile (경남모직) ran a mill on the site of today's NC Department Store until it moved production to Masan in 1986.² The lanes that followed filled with tool and hardware dealers.²

Until a few years before the 2017 ranking, this was a littered back alley of Seomyeon, and the district office put up signs calling it the district's disgrace.¹ From around 2009, young owners with little capital began renting the empty shop units in the tool alley for small cafés and restaurants, and by mid-2017 the district counted about 150 cafés, dessert shops, restaurants and stores.²

Roasters and espresso bars

The Korea Times calls Jeonpo the original home of Busan's coffee scene, with the newer names in Yeongdo and Jung-gu.³ FM Coffee House (FM커피하우스) was one of the first, opening in 2010 as a specialty coffee shop when the lanes held only tool dealers and parking lots.² It roasts on the ground floor, and its best-known drink is the Tomorrow coffee, cold brew under a layer of cream.² It is at Jeonpo-daero 199beon-gil 26 and opens daily 10:00–22:00.

Month Coffee Bar, at Dongseong-ro 87beon-gil 5, is built around its bar counter.³ Its owner, Moon Heon-gwan, won the World Cup Tasters Championship in 2022, and each month he picks one bean for the Month Platter: an espresso, a latte and a filter coffee from the same coffee.³ Customers sit at the bar and watch him brew.⁴

Other specialty bars in the lanes include VICE VERSA on Seojeon-ro 57beon-gil and Him Coffee Brewers (힘커피브루어스) on Dongseong-ro 71beon-gil. In 2020 the World Barista Champion Jeon Joo-yeon named Cafe Ethan among her favorite Busan cafés for its atmosphere.⁵

Dessert cafés and late hours

Vintage 38 (빈티지38) opened in early 2017 in a converted multi-level space with a white camper van parked at the entrance, and takes its name from its street number, Jeonpo-daero 199beon-gil 38.² It stays open 24 hours. Atelier Macaron (아뜰리에마카롱) on Seojeon-ro 38beon-gil opened in July 2012, when handmade macarons were hard to find in Busan outside hotels and department stores.² It opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30–22:00.

U:DALLY (유달리) at Jeonpo-daero 209beon-gil 22 keeps 10:00–23:00 daily, and Goyu Coffee (고유커피) 13:00–23:00 from Tuesday to Sunday. For an early start, Chai coffee opens at 08:00 every day.

The Jeonpo Coffee Festival in October

Busanjin-gu holds the Jeonpo Coffee Festival (전포커피축제) around Noli Maru each October, and bills it as Busan's first coffee festival.⁷ The tenth edition ran on 17 and 18 October 2026 under the theme "커피로 잇는 전포의 10년" (ten years of Jeonpo, joined by coffee), from 12:00 to 20:00 on Saturday and until 18:00 on Sunday.⁷ Entry was free, with booths from Jeonpo and Busan coffee and dessert shops, guest baristas from Japan and Taiwan, coffee seminars and hand-drip brewing classes.⁷