No reservation needed at Korea's hottest dining spot — the convenience store

 In the popular Netflix series “Squid Game”, characters Il-nam and Gi-hun drink soju together at a table in a convenience store. In tvN’s “It’s Okay to Not Be Okay”, Moon-young and Gang-tae sit down together and eat ramyeon in a convenience store.

Although dining at a convenience store may sound like a sad, lonely meal, that is not always the case in Korea. It’s quite common to see Koreans stopping by a convenience store to have a drink with their friends or grab a quick lunch, just like these popular Korean TV show characters.

So how did eating and drinking at convenience stores become so normal in Korea?

BY LEE JUNG-JOO, JEON TAE-GYU [[email protected]]