Local Cafe in My Town — What It Means to Have a Local Cafe in Your Neighborhood

In the restaurant business, there’s a saying that just surviving three years counts as success. Is it impossible for a neighborhood shop to stay well for a long time? We met Ha Ji-won, owner of Alt Grain, which makes desserts and teas from Korean grains, to talk about it.

Words Parc Jinmyoung
Interviewee Ha Ji-won, Owner (Alt Grain)

I got off at Sosa Station on Subway Line 1, took a village bus, and got off at the entrance of Bucheon Hanshin Market. It was a weekday and quiet, but every shop in the market was open. Cross the market and you reach an apartment complex. After about five minutes of walking, Alt Grain appears in a building of white brick. Alt Grain is both a brand and a cafe that makes desserts and drinks from Korean grains. It mainly sells Korean sweets inspired by Western desserts such as pound cake, macarons, and financiers, paired with coffee drinks like a hojicha latte and organic teas made from ingredients such as raspberry, buckwheat seed, and red bean.

Note 1. A Nurse Opening a Cafe?

Could you briefly introduce Alt Grain?
It’s a space that sells desserts and drinks made from grains. I started it because I wanted to break the notion that grains have to be eaten as a staple and reinterpret them as desserts.

What does Alt Grain mean?
At first it was simply short for “alternative grain,” meaning a grain that can serve as a substitute. Then I added another layer of meaning: just as pressing the Alt key on a keyboard switches things, I wanted to present all kinds of things, from desserts to drinks, within the single ingredient of grain.

Lately many dessert brands have appeared that reinterpret traditional Korean sweets in a modern way. What sets Alt Grain apart?
To feel approachable to younger people today, I combined familiar foreign desserts with traditional Korean sweets. I bake tteok (rice cake) like a pound cake, and I coat puffed barley in chocolate. Tteok feels like a meal rather than a dessert, and yakgwa (honey cookies) and gangjeong (glutinous rice snacks) seem like old-fashioned treats mostly enjoyed by older generations. It took a lot of thought and effort to figure out how to make our healthy Korean grains a little easier to enjoy.

What got you interested in traditional grains?
When I was learning Western-style baking, it used far too much sugar and butter. Vegan baking and rice baking weren’t much fun either. Then I got ideas from the grains and famine-relief crops I’d always liked. Ever since I was little, we always had traditional treats at home, like red bean tea and sweet potato chips. In the end, I think that influence stuck.

We’re also curious why you left nursing to run a cafe.
I worked in an operating room. Like anyone, I needed an escape, and for me it was cafes. I would enjoy my time alone in a cafe and recharge the strength to live through another day. Once I started dreaming of running a cafe myself, I began learning coffee and baking.

What do the two jobs have in common?
It may sound a bit grand, but I think it’s that both heal people. While working in the operating room, I thought again and again that the greatest misfortune in life is being physically ill. When you’re sick, even money is useless. That’s why I thought hard about desserts you can eat healthily and deliciously.

Do you have a health routine of your own?
Drinking tea may not seem like much, but if you keep at it, the effect is enormous.

Note 2. The Sustainability of a Neighborhood Cafe

Alt Grain has been open for over a year now. How has the response been?
At first, because of COVID, I couldn’t run a physical shop. I spent six months making desserts, selling them online, and packing parcels. That’s when I made a gift-style home cafe kit. It got a great response too, and before I knew it, another six months had flown by just packing boxes. The chocolate barley cookies got the hottest response.
After launching the brand, I heard from a lot of tea shops, because unsweetened desserts go well with tea. I collaborate with cafes and tea houses active in Seoul, including Magpie & Tiger, and the feedback has generally been positive. I think I’ve grown a lot by creating menus together with tea experts.

How are most of your products made?
The first one I fell in love with, and also the most popular, is the glutinous rice walnut cake. Instead of butter and wheat flour, I use glutinous rice flour and milk. It’s a recipe I revised again and again for a very long time so that I could use only a minimum of butter and flour. It tastes like hodugwaja (walnut-shaped cakes) and has a texture similar to a glutinous rice doughnut, so people of all ages like it.

How does it differ from Western-style baking?
The method is similar; only the ingredients are swapped. The biggest difference is that I sharply reduced the sweetness. When I bake a batter that blends wet rice flour from a neighborhood mill with a very small amount of wheat flour, the texture turns out somewhere between tteok and bread. That’s how I’ve found my own way of baking.

I hear you also collaborate with local farms.
Mostly I’m the one who knocks on the door of brands I like first. Recently I collaborated with Gwinong Iyagi (Returning-to-Farming Story), a brand in Jirisan that deals in health teas and health juices. It’s a large company that sells roasted teas from crops they grow themselves, from pumpkin to red bean to Job’s tears. I truly love their teas. We sold a holiday gift set called the “Korean Grain Sweets Set,” pairing Gwinong Iyagi’s teas with Alt Grain’s desserts, and the response was quite good.

Note 3. A Neighborhood Cafe Lover’s Travels

How did you end up settling in this neighborhood?
I liked that it isn’t noisy like a big city yet has all the conveniences of one. The neighborhood sits between Yeokgok Station and Sosa Station, and Yeokgok is so full of good restaurants that it’s called a local holy land. Many people there take pride in their flavors and have worked in the same spot for a long time. There aren’t many cafes with the sensibility young people like, but lately they’ve been increasing one by one. There are also many large markets nearby. Hanshin Market, where our shop is, is one of them. I go most often to the tteok shops in the market. It’s an interesting neighborhood in many ways.

Now that I’m here, I can see why you settled in this place.
Even when I think back to the cafes I used to visit, none were crowded or loud. I wanted to pass on to others the comfort I received, so a Seoul neighborhood wasn’t a priority. Here you can see the mountains and hear birdsong. And the white brick building is charming too.

What’s your favorite place in Bucheon?
First is Berne Stream, Bucheon’s pride, on par with Seoul Forest. The park runs along the stream, so it feels a bit exotic and is wonderful for walks. And as I said, there are so many restaurants that carry a sense of age and history. Near the Catholic University of Korea, I recommend Hakgyo Ganeun Gil (The Way to School), an old tteokbokki shop, and Deulkkaerang Boriibori, which serves kalguksu (knife-cut noodle soup) and gamjajeon (potato pancakes). The food comes out modestly arranged like a country meal, and it’s really delicious.

Is there a destination you’d love to visit?
Melbourne, Australia. Since starting Alt Grain, I’ve become more interested in neighborhoods where local cafes have thrived. Melbourne has become extremely famous for local cafes in recent years. Having a cafe with great flavor and atmosphere in your neighborhood can change your quality of life. Just imagining spending time on my own, enjoying good coffee and desserts whenever I like, makes me happy. Someday I’ll go to Melbourne and learn the secret of why neighborhood cafes do so well.

Is there a destination you’d recommend to travelers who love local brands?
Bangkok, Thailand. I also love Japan, and Bangkok feels like a city with Japan’s attention to detail plus a rustic touch. Even if you don’t set out to go anywhere in particular, exploring the alleys is a lot of fun.

Many local brands are appearing these days. What must local brands, including Alt Grain, do to be sustainable?
It’s something I study and think about a great deal. The most important thing is to stay in people’s memories. We basically don’t have the capital to invest in advertising like big corporations, so leaving a good impression on the people who visit this space, and on customers who like Alt Grain’s products and come back, is what I can do right now.

What are your plans for the future?
I plan to add more tables and promote the shop more actively. Until now I’ve been cautious because of COVID and couldn’t properly make the physical shop known, but experiencing it in person is far more memorable and better. I’ll also keep going with what I’ve been doing, such as developing menus and taking collaboration proposals.

Note 4. If a big-chain franchise café and a local café sat side by side in your neighborhood alley, which one would you walk into?