Lee Hyori's Coffee Shop Success Sparks Controversy?! Nearby Coffee Businesses Unite in Protest!

According to South Korean media reports, South Korean singer Lee Hyori and her musician husband Lee Sang-soon sparked dissatisfaction among nearby coffee shop owners and a former ruling party member after recently opening a coffee shop on Jeju Island.

On July 1, the coffee shop run jointly by Lee Hyori and her husband began operating. Although the couple had done no promotion beforehand, netizens sharing photos with Lee Hyori and pictures of Lee Sang-soon brewing coffee for customers on various social platforms drew large crowds of fans and netizens to visit.

In the first three days of opening, the queue outside the coffee shop stretched over 100 meters daily, causing dissatisfaction among neighboring coffee and beverage shop owners, who then approached a former ruling party member to speak for them.

As a result, Jeon Yeo-ok, a former member of South Korea's ruling party, publicly criticized Lee Hyori and her husband's approach to opening a coffee shop on Jeju Island on July 3 via Facebook. She argued that as public figures, celebrities carry more influence than ordinary entrepreneurs, and that the situation was like an entrepreneur's child opening a bakery.

"I'm just curious why these people want to open coffee shops. Is it because the operating threshold for a coffee shop is lower than for other food and beverage businesses? If this continues, all the surrounding coffee shops will go bankrupt." She also said that for the celebrity couple, opening a coffee shop on Jeju Island was just a hobby and a way to add some spice to life, but for many coffee shop owners on the island, it is their livelihood.

In her post she also wrote that the coffee shop opens at 9 o'clock, yet a 100-meter queue is already waiting in the hot outdoor weather. In such heat, all the products in the store sold out within 12 minutes, and the shop announced a temporary closure. Is this really how a coffee shop should operate, she asked.

Faced with Jeon Yeo-ok's questions, the couple did not respond, and netizens debated the issue. Although some criticized the celebrity couple's coffee shop for the losses it would bring to surrounding businesses, more netizens believed that opening a shop out of love for music and coffee was the couple's freedom. Moreover, theirs is not the only celebrity-owned coffee shop on Jeju Island, so why single out this couple?

Responding to netizens' questions, Jeon Yeo-ok posted again on the 4th. She stated that when other celebrities open shops, most do not appear in the store. Lee Hyori and her husband, by contrast, personally brewed coffee and took photos with customers, which inevitably drew everyone to visit out of curiosity and was extremely unfair to other coffee shops on the island.

She also expressed respect for the many celebrities who open restaurants or coffee shops "for a living," calling it a very attractive side business. Many celebrities lack stable income in the entertainment industry and use side businesses as a backup. Lee Hyori's coffee shop, however, is not about making a living. She already owns several properties on Jeju Island and elsewhere, and now wants to open another coffee shop with the "celebrity effect" on an island where coffee shops already struggle to operate. How, she asked, can other coffee shops survive?

On the 5th, Lee Sang-soon responded to the matter on Instagram, stating that the coffee shop had nothing to do with his wife and had been his decision from beginning to end. He said he opened the coffee shop because he has long loved specialty coffee, so he wanted to open a place on Jeju Island that could combine with the music he creates and provide a gathering place for people with similar tastes. The opening therefore involved no external promotion.

He also mentioned that because he has no experience running a coffee shop and is not someone who can handle many people, the shop is very small. On the first day of opening, his wife and friends came to celebrate, which is why he personally brewed coffee and his wife agreed to take photos. To avoid disturbing other residents and shops, he does not plan to stay in the store during business hours to serve customers in the future, focusing instead on overall operations and music creation behind the scenes.

As for the shop's opening situation, Lee Sang-soon said the store would not be open to the public for the next two days and would switch to an appointment system starting from the 7th. The other baristas would also do their best to serve the best coffee to visiting customers. The comment section under his post was filled with supportive voices, with netizens saying that opening a coffee shop was his personal freedom and that they could not understand why a former ruling party member would criticize it.

Celebrity Coffee Shops on Jeju Island

In South Korea, Lee Hyori and her husband are not the only celebrities who have opened coffee shops on Jeju Island; many others have opened restaurants and coffee shops here. According to analysis by some South Korean media, for artists the threshold to start a coffee business is lower, with less capital investment, which makes it attractive as a side business. At the same time, the addition of celebrity shops can bring more foot traffic to nearby commercial areas.

A real estate representative noted, however, that although celebrity coffee shops or restaurants sometimes lift an area into a new commercial district, they can also disturb local residents and other businesses because of fans' excessive enthusiasm. A celebrity's own fame brings powerful marketing effects, but it also leads to various public controversies. One reason is that the celebrity themselves does not appear in the store, and another is that product prices are inflated by celebrity status, which cannot sustain long-term consumption.

As a result, many celebrity-owned shops see very large crowds in the first month or two after opening, but business declines later, especially for coffee shops. Coffee shops emphasize the taste of coffee and food, yet the quality of many celebrity coffee shops cannot meet consumers' expectations and the prices are not cheap, so people come once to support their idol and do not return. Not many shops can actually operate long-term.

He added that, conversely, coffee shops or restaurants where celebrities partner with others and do not use themselves as the promotion tend to fare differently, because people come for the coffee itself rather than the celebrity and there is no strong sense of disappointment.

Image source: Internet

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