Seoul, South Korea. A few stations from the Mangwon subway, between restaurants, Pyeoneui-jeom (convenience stores), bars and markets, there is a sign in blue. It is ‘Hola Café by Marco’, which stands out among the Hangul, the Korean language, of the surrounding places.
Marco Lepine decided to create his cafeteria six years ago. Upon entering the establishment, the smell of coffee is perceived among Frida Kahlo paintings, old photographs of Mexico, the Aztec calendar, traditional handmade clay mugs, embroidered shawls and books in Spanish. Everything shows that we are in a small Mexico in the capital of South Korea, a city that advances very fast.
The Mexican, who had had experience as an entrepreneur in the logistics and textile sector before emigrating, formed a multicultural family. This is the reason why he came to Seoul eight years ago with his Korean national wife. To live in the first years he began to teach Spanish, months later he started with his first cafeteria, in which he combines precisely this first experience, since ‘Hola Café’ is a place to learn, study, work and exchange the Spanish.
South Korea is the seventh largest coffee importing country in the world, with more than 500 cups taken per person per year, according to data from the Yonhap News agency. In 2019, imports reached a record 150,185 tons and, although they fell in 2020 due to COVID-19, it is a market that firms such as KB Financial Group anticipate will continue to increase, due to high demand among young people.
All this despite the fact that in South Korea coffee is expensive: consumers pay up to five dollars for an American. The competition goes beyond chains like Starbucks, adding themed cafes, studio cafes, low-priced ones, take-out bars, K-pop idol cafes and Asian franchises.
Lepine decided to go for an establishment in a busy area. He wasn’t a fan of coffee, but he trained to be a barista. And with an investment of $ 70,000, he started his business. It took him a year to recover that amount. And it had annual growth of between 13.5% and 11%, when the coronavirus arrived. The pandemic slowed growth and its plans to open a second branch.
“We were only able to keep the coffee because of the income from the Spanish academy and the support of the government,” he says. So far Lepine has received about $ 3,500 from the government aid program.
Not just coffee, space is sold
“Here the coffee didn’t work,” he says. When starting his company, he opted to bring a Mexican coffee but people did not distinguish and confused it with a special drink. Its star product ended up not being so and its place was taken by language exchange talks. It was here that he discovered the essence of ‘Hola Café’. “The coffee shop business is not coffee, it is space. People come to stay here, because of the place, ”explains Lepine.
In South Korea, due to the culture, it is not so common for people to invite others to their homes to study or work on a project, so the meeting point is the cafeterias, since the restaurants do not allow after-dinner parties. In this way, these spaces become a kind of coworking or study places.
The pandemic has stopped the flagship product: language exchange sessions. Lepine also had to close the last months of 2020, the owner of the premises contributed by not collecting the rent of the place, and the entrepreneur continued with private classes with small groups to comply with regulations throughout the day. Faced with this, do not lower your guard and hope that they return.
‘Hola Cafe’ is one of the 20 Mexican companies that, according to the Mexican Embassy in South Korea, have operations in the country and among which are multinationals such as Bimbo and Kidzania and entrepreneurs in the restaurant industry, K-beauty ( the popular Korean beauty segment) and tourism, mainly.
“South Korea is a practically new market for Mexicans, however it is important that they dare to undertake. It is a country rich in technology, gastronomy, culture or education, to mention some areas, where the economic support from the Korean government and the market opportunities are very great ”, assures Fernando Efraín Guzmán, president of the Global Network of Mexicans Chapter Korea.
