Before It Melts — Before the Ice Cream, and Life, Melts Away

The neighborhood ice cream shop, Before It Melts. Stepping inside feels a bit like entering an arcade. The daily-changing menu bears names that are clever and full of humor: ‘Ingwimanjeom,’ combining the first syllables of injeolmi (rice cake) and oats; ‘Apateu’ (Apartment), made with aronia (and blueberry), pineapple, and mint; and ‘Chikgai,’ made from arrowroot. Along with names that bring a smile, the shop never misses out on small daily pleasures. On the anniversary of nearby schools, it hosts special events for students, and for customers who arrive on a Ttareungyi (Seoul's public bike-share) bike, it offers a discount based on the distance ridden. What fun awaits today, before it melts?

Interviewer Parc Jinmyoung
Interviewee Park Jeongsu (Owner, Before It Melts)

Could you briefly introduce Before It Melts?
We're an artisanal ice cream shop where the menu changes every day. Beyond developing new ice cream flavors, we create all kinds of content related to ice cream. We also occasionally collaborate with various companies—picture book publishers, secondhand trading apps, accelerators, and more.

You opened your first store in Ikseon-dong in 2017, then moved it to Yeomni-dong. Recently you opened your second location, Natjeom. What made you start an ice cream shop in the first place?
When I started working, I decided I'd change careers every five years. After working in electrical and electronics, I chose ice cream shop owner as my next path. Maybe it's because I've loved ice cream since childhood, but even after five years, making it still brings me joy. I think it also helps that I'm the type who likes waking up early and diligently making things. Unlike a café or restaurant, an ice cream shop operates by preparing the product in advance and waiting for customers. And since you can make ice cream out of almost any ingredient, it's a great medium for expressing all kinds of ideas. I want to keep doing my best going forward.

In the book you wrote * ‘Good Mood,’ you mention right at the start that you prefer admiring ice cream to eating it. It sounds like you've always enjoyed observing things closely for a long time.
I really do. I try to look at a single object from many angles, believing it isn't necessarily meant for only one purpose—after all, everything is just a lump of matter. Ice cream, in particular, is a fairly unusual object. The cold that travels through your fingertips when you hold the spoon, the way it melts away the instant it touches your tongue. It feels quite different from the objects we usually encounter.
* A book about ‘good mood,’ the foundation of work and life. It began as a job posting—a hundred-plus-page ‘hospitality guide’ seeking a colleague to work alongside—which gained popularity online and was later published as a standalone book in 2024.

What's the meaning behind the name ‘Before It Melts’?
Ice cream turned out to be something that tells time, like a clock. Watch it long enough, and it melts. Have you noticed there's a clock hanging outside the shop instead of a sign? Time has always been the most important theme for me. Every living thing, humans included, eventually dies with time, and every object eventually changes in appearance. Everything in this world is finite. That's also why I decided to change careers every five years—I figured that if I had as many experiences and memories as possible, I'd at least be happy right before I die. I'm someone who values time immensely, so I end up focusing on living each day joyfully. The name carries the meaning of ‘staying present,’ before the ice cream—and life—melts away.

Aside from ice cream, what are you interested in these days?
I usually enjoy juggling, because it lets me feel gravity directly. Actually, I came down with an ear infection this morning, and I went and juggled just to check if it had affected my vestibular system too. (Laughs)

Interestingly, it seems like a lot of ice cream makers have engineering backgrounds.*
That makes sense. Ice cream actually falls under food engineering. It's not simply frozen food—it's the product of engineering that carefully designs the interaction between water molecule structures and other ingredients. The precise calculations of engineering determine the taste, texture, and color of ice cream.
* The owner of Pietra, the gelato shop in Yeonnam-dong that Pitch by Pitch interviewed, majored in architecture, while the owner of Coconism, the plant-based ice cream brand in Pil-dong, opened the shop after working at a car company.

How is Before It Melts' ice cream different from gelato?
My colleague and I recently talked about whether what we make is ice cream or gelato. Sometimes customers ask if it's gelato. And I always ask them back, ‘What's the difference, exactly?’ In truth, ice cream and gelato are made the same way, with the same machines. Most customers say gelato is chewier, but that's a bit ambiguous too—the degree of chewiness depends on the milk fat content. Since the distinction feels so unclear, we just call it ice cream.

Were you originally interested in branding?
Actually, I tend to introduce Before It Melts as a shop rather than a brand. I try to avoid using the word ‘brand.’ There was a time, after opening Before It Melts, when I got deeply into branding, marketing, planning, and design—I basically read every book on the subject I could find. My conclusion is that ‘brand’ feels like a word for creators, not consumers. At the same time, it feels like borrowing someone else's success strategy—chasing a glory that's already passed. I believe a shop, or a brand, should always live right beside the consumer, in the present. That said, the one thing successful brands seem to have in common is that the person who built them did their absolute best given their circumstances. Once I realized that, I felt I didn't need to study branding anymore. Even if it stays a small corner shop no matter how well it does, that's fine—that's how it should live. I just keep working quietly.

I thought the somewhat bashful tone of Before It Melts' social media posts was also part of an intentional branding strategy.
Promoting or selling something through social media just feels awkward to me. ‘Our ice cream is delicious.’ ‘Try it.’ Even online, saying things like that feels really embarrassing. It still does, honestly. (Laughs)

You've made around 400 kinds of ice cream since 2017. Is there a recipe that stands out most in your memory?
Since the menu changes every day, I've probably made over 500 by now. Around 2021, customers who loved Before It Melts formed an open chat group on social media where they'd share fun ideas. Some sent in bold ingredients like carrots, cilantro, perilla leaves, or canned tuna. Back then, I was completely absorbed in making ice cream out of whatever ingredients anonymous customers would send me.

Why does the menu change every day?
It's not really an intentional marketing strategy. Many people, office workers included, do the same thing every day. I believe happiness begins with small variations in daily life. The surest and easiest way to keep working at an ice cream shop without burning out is to change the menu every day. In short, it's an operating method designed for the person doing the work.

How do you decide the menu each day?
Everything is prepared in advance, and the menu for the following day is decided at 9 p.m. the night before. These days I spend a full 10 hours making ice cream.

You recently opened your second location, Natjeom. I heard that during the month-long soft opening, you deliberately didn't announce it on social media.
I thought spreading the word everywhere wouldn't be respectful to this neighborhood. What matters most, first and foremost, is focusing on the people who live and have their roots here. To run a shop in one place for a long time, there's a lot you need to consider in advance—how long you can maintain your stamina, how much the rent might rise, and so on. One of those considerations is who you're keeping the shop going for—and for me, that's the neighborhood residents.

How did you come to discover this location?
I was looking for a space to open my second store. This spot used to be a black tea shop called Nat, and the owner actually reached out to me first. From the moment I saw it, I loved everything about it—the interior, the atmosphere, all of it. What struck me most was that warm, comforting feeling unique to an old neighborhood. The building's low ceiling, about two meters high, also stood out. It felt like the previous owner understood my wish that, whenever customers stop by Nokgijeone, they'd come as their unguarded, ‘lowered’ selves. But most importantly, I felt this was a space where my colleagues and I could comfortably dwell.

You use the word ‘dwell’ instead of ‘work.’
Maybe because a workplace is somewhere you spend even more time than at home.

Was there a particular detail you focused on when designing the space?
I tried to preserve as much of the original as possible. The stone and cement floors, the tables, the lighting, the frames—I wanted to carry forward what the previous owner of Nat had put in place. That's also why we named the store ‘Natjeom.’ We wove our own identity in through playful text and small objects that you can only notice if you look closely.

I heard you also run a monthly tree-planting program with customers. What inspired you to start it?
I feel sorry that we haven't been able to do it often lately. (Laughs) I heard that long ago, people could only get a dopamine hit by winning a war. That means an enormous amount of stimulation was needed just to feel real joy. These days, we can get pleasure so easily just by holding a smartphone, and I think that makes us focus only on the smallest slice of life. I felt that wasn't the right direction. I wanted to send a message to people living through this era with me—that we need a way of living that looks further ahead and thinks in longer terms. As I was thinking about what that could be, planting trees came to mind. A tree we plant today won't produce any immediate results, but in ten years, it will have grown taller than we are.

Do you like traveling?
I'm actually not that fond of traveling. Not many people would say that these days—it makes you sound like a hikikomori, someone who's hard to talk to. (Laughs) In the first year I started making ice cream, I once circled the globe just to get a sense of how big the Earth is. Through that experience, I realized that the stimulation I get from everyday life is actually greater.

Now that you've seen it firsthand, did you get a sense of the Earth's size?
I traveled through Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Russia. I took a plane or train almost every day, and it took about three weeks in total. Of course, I also rested along the way.

You get a lot of collaboration offers—what do you think makes Nokgijeone so appealing?
I think running a store means covering everything from A to Z. Every brand wants something different. Nokgijeone has so many different facets that it can pair well with almost any brand. I think people come to us because they want to use, in their own way, the emotion, fun, and ideas I try to convey through ice cream. I imagine the same goes for the customers who visit us, too.