While in Yangyang, a holiday beach town along the east coast of Korea, just a five-minute drive from the hip Hajodae beach is a large concrete building.
Surrounded by farming lands and overgrown tree groves was the relatively newly built building. Painted on the building’s entrance, a large rolling metal door, was a logo reading Koh Garage.
Upon entering the cafe, you can feel the openness of the space. It was wide and open which was down to a very high ceiling. The ceiling was high enough to accommodate for a mezzanine level that led to an office for staff. The space was multifaceted offering drinks, food and goods as well as a hotel in another part of the building.
The interior featured a lot of concrete with the floors, ceiling, support beams and walls all made of it. Most of these elements were left in their original grey, with the exception of the walls which were mostly painted white.
The size and concrete elements complemented the café’s theme, a garage. The fact that there were also vintage bikes and even a bright red Volkswagen parked in the space of course helped too.
Yet the space didn’t feel industrial at all. Other elements like beautiful rich wood, soft carpets, surfboards on display, aluminium frames and finishes and lush palm trees helped to take away the mechanical elements to the space. With bright pops colors in red, blue, green and brown, the space felt like a chic and well-maintained private garage. The space wasn’t cold and unwelcoming like an actual garage, rather the space was laid back and welcoming.
There were two parts to the cafe. One half was the cafe and the other half was a select store. The select store sold surf related clothing and goods. With this, there were also displays of surfboards and goods, doubling as nice decoration for the space.
Although being relatively far away from the beach, the cafe still felt like a beach themed cafe with odes to the sea and surf gear. However, rather than the commercialised American/Hawaiian surf culture seen in most Korean beach style cafes, the cafe felt more laidback. With more subdued and well throughout decoration, to me the café felt more like an Australian spin on surfing culture.
The seating was a mix of normal wooden tables and chairs for up to four people, benches and low table and chairs. With the variety of seating types, it made the space appropriate for working and socializing. However, especially in summer, the chill atmosphere felt like a place for rest and relaxing rather than working. Alongside drinks, the cafe also sold food, however at the time I went the food was all sold out.
For a drink, I had an iced chocolate. It was very sweet and smooth. Although it tasted more like white chocolate than milk chocolate, it was tasty none the less.
Koh Garage was a relaxing and well decorated space that is an ode to laidback surf and garage culture. In dead beats terms, the café feels like you’ve been invited to a friends’ backyard shed, only the shed is chic and well decorated. While in Yangyang, this is a great spot to get your coffee fix, all the while, pick up any extra needed supplies for the beach.
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