Idol devotion: Inside Seoul’s ‘birthday cafés,’ where fans gather to celebrate their favourite stars

A father and daughter sit inside a birthday café dedicated to Lee Na-gyung, member of K-pop group fromis_9. (Charlie Miller/CNN via CNN Newsource)

SEOUL, South Korea - Seoul’s Hongdae neighbourhood is famous for its forest of cafés.

On any given day, the aroma of roasted coffee beans fills the air, with many of the shopfronts fronted by tall-as-trees banners bearing the image of a glamorous-looking person.

Take three steps, and you’ll see a glass door with another poster of that same smiling face; three more paces, and there they are again, draped with ribbons and floral decorations.

People excitedly wander between these storefronts with their cell phones, taking selfies and snapshots of the colorful scenes.

These are not advertisements or paid promotions. These are “birthday cafés”— specialized venues dedicated to celebrating the birthdays of K-pop idols. For just a few days around an idol’s birthday, these regular coffee shops transform into curated galleries devoted to the superstar.

Inside each café, the walls are packed with photographs of the smiling celebrity, while shiny streamers and balloons sway along with a playlist featuring songs by the idol. Visitors enjoy their coffee in decorated cups. They also get to take home a variety of collectibles — including photocards, stickers, and cups — that come with their beverage.

A party without the guest of honour

Located in northwestern Seoul, Hongdae stands as the most prominent hub for birthday cafés in South Korea, with around 50 venues regularly hosting these events.

It’s common for multiple cafés in the area to host them simultaneously, sometimes with several different venues all dedicated to the same person at once.

The guest of honour rarely ever shows up. But nobody gets upset about that. Despite the scale, neither the owners nor the fans expect the celebrity to walk through the door.

Yoo Ji-hye is the owner of Café E;You, which frequently hosts these types of events. She explains that it is difficult to expect highly recognized celebrities or those with massive fandoms to visit.

A top star would have to stop by up to 30 different locations in a single day, and local cafés lack the resources, like security, that would be required to support such a visit.

Despite their absence, fans’ dedication does not fade. Birthday cafés welcome “a massive number of visitors during peak periods,” she says.

Indeed, high-profile events over a single weekend draw hundreds of people. In streets where more than 10 venues sit side by side, finding a vacant seat becomes impossible. For the most popular stars, the crowd simply overflows, leaving long queues stretching past the storefronts.

Many fans go on “café tours” — the practice of visiting multiple venues dedicated to the same idol.

“This is my eighth stop,” says Hong Ji-ye, a fan of Wonpil of the K-pop band DAY6, shyly dismissing the idea that she has visited many venues.

Depending on the number of cafés dedicated to their favourite star, fans plan their tours to experience different themes. While some cafés showcase concept photos from the star’s latest album, others feature stylized character representations, or even display childhood photos, channeling the concept of doljanchi — a traditional Korean first-birthday celebration.

The buzz of shared obsession

What exactly are these fans chasing in a space where the star is highly unlikely to appear?

“It’s about having a space where everyone who shares the same love can gather,” Yoo says. There is “a sense of pure joy,” she adds.

The venues buzz with admiration as fans peruse the cafés’ custom merchandise, excited squeals filling the air as they participate in on-site raffles. Almost all conversation is centred on the idols.

While the coffee may not always be organic, the birthday cafés are, with events organized entirely by the fans themselves.

Months before the artist’s actual birthday, fans voluntarily step into the role of event planners — booking venues, selecting concepts, designing the custom merchandise and decorating cafés in person. From initial planning to final visit, the entire experience is completely fan-created, fan-executed and fan-consumed.

It’s hard to pinpoint when the birthday café phenomenon started, but it’s certainly a product of the social media age, as platforms like Twitter — now X — first made it possible for fans to connect and organize.

This network has since matured, with several platforms allowing fans to voluntarily submit and register their event details to databases. People can search event listings for specific artists, view merchandise details for each venue and interact with map visualizations spanning from Seoul to Busan — there are often up to 40 venues focused on a single idol.

From pop stars to religion

As a powerful medium for admiration and support, birthday cafés are rapidly breaking traditional boundaries.

The phenomenon has since evolved far beyond K-pop idols; the format is now being embraced by various Korean fandoms, spanning from actors to professional athletes.

Walk through the bustling theater district of Hyehwa, and banners of actors line the streets outside cafés; visit the areas near a major soccer stadium, and the storefronts are plastered with images of players for their birthdays.

Birthday cafés are even being held for figures who have absolutely zero chance of ever showing up — like John Lennon.

A birthday café dedicated to the late Beatles legend is scheduled to open in October in Hongdae district.

“Offline fan events for artists like the Beatles or John Lennon are so rare in Korea,” says Jeong Saet-byeol, a host of the event. There is a natural desire among fans for “gathering in a single space to connect with people who share the same musical taste,” she says.

The pursuit of a shared communal experience is driving the culture to expand into other fields, shifting the core purpose from a lively party to an act of collective remembrance.

Some might say it’s also becoming a religious experience.

Take this group. To mark Buddha’s birthday on May 24, a birthday café dedicated to the Buddha opened near the gates of Yeonhwasa Temple in northwestern Seoul.

Now in its third consecutive year, this event has seen its duration expand with each iteration, stretching into a month-long celebration this time around.

From the doorsteps, a banner features a cartoon of the Buddha wearing a party hat and sipping a lotus latte. Inside, the same character sits beneath alphabet banners reading “HAPPY BUDDHA’S DAY.” Visitors who order the signature latte receive a custom cup holder along with a Buddha photocard.

“We wanted to take a culture that has belonged to celebrities and apply it to Buddhism,” a temple official explains. The events have allowed the temple to “engage with the local community in a positive way,” she says, drawing in a younger population who might otherwise rarely visit a temple.

As the birthday café culture expands its boundaries, a few celebrities are seizing these events as opportunities to interact with their fans.

Actors, sports stars and — though rare — major K-pop stars like aespa and NCT have visited their own birthday cafés.

Yet the occasional celebrity appearance does not alter the fundamental purpose of these spaces: they remain events built by fans, for fans.

“Since birthday cafés allow fans to directly shape their own culture of support, it will continue to remain a steady trend,” Jeong says.

By Gyeongmin Kim, CNN