Gangneung snack café with a capsule prize game: Gangneung Sand

⏰️ Hours: daily 9:30–19:00 (last order 18:30)

🅿️ Parking: free, parking available around the store

💬 Amenities — takeout, group seating, WiFi, reservations, separate men's/women's restrooms, waiting area, wheelchair-accessible restroom / entrance / seating

How to get to Gangneung Sand Main Branch, and where to park

This is the route to Gangneung Sand — you might get a little lost along the way, so keep the directions handy!

Gangneung Sand has its own dedicated parking lot for about 7 cars, and depending on the situation it looked like it could fit up to 10 — so no worries about parking!👍

Santorini-style exterior: where Gangneung Sand Main Branch is

The exterior of Gangneung Sand Main Branch

One whole building houses everything from making and selling Gangneung Sand to a kids' experience zone — a large café. If you search Gangneung Sand Main Branch, two locations come up, and this one is on Seonggokgoyang-gil (성곡고양길)!

💬 I was wondering what souvenir or dessert to bring back from Gangneung, and stopped by to pick up Gangneung Sand, which has won several tourism product awards and comes in a wide range of flavors! Right from the exterior, the warm tiles and paint finish — not too cold-toned — paired with plants gave off a slightly exotic, Santorini-like atmosphere!👏👏

The entrance and stairs feel almost overseas — I got one of my best shots here!

(Mmm, the butter scent is already so strong!!) They apparently use premium gourmet butter — I love it, sniff sniff.

After enjoying the exterior, we finally headed up haha. The elevator currently runs from B1, 1F all the way up to 5F, and we looked around starting from the top and worked our way down.

What is on each floor of Gangneung Sand Main Branch?

Inside Gangneung Sand

• 5F: I heard 'rooftop viewpoint entrance' and imagined a wide terrace, but it's really just the rooftop
• 4F: Office, so pass❗️
• 3F: Kids' experience zone and rest area, plus a restroom just for 👧 children
• 2F: Café space where you can buy the souvenir sand
• 1F: Experience classroom, outdoor restroom

3F

There's a kids' play space here plus room to have a drink! The women's restroom is also nicely done — the pink pastel-toned sink was so cute that my eyes kept going back to it! 🤩

Sand play treasure hunt and the capsule prize game on the 3rd floor

⭐️To use the play zone, pay for a play pass at the 2F counter first!

You go into the sandbox and use a toy car to dig up treasure —

and once you find a capsule❗️❗️ you can spin the gacha at the 2F counter! (2 capsules per person) Kids are going to love this!!! Even just looking at the prize board, it seems really popular.

1st prize: 1 box of Gangneung Sand / 2nd: strawberry latte / 3rd: iced tea / 4th: Americano / 5th: unfortunately — nothing

That's the play experience, done!

Souvenir competition awards on show at the 2nd-floor counter

At the 2F counter you can see the various awards this store has won for its souvenir designs. (most recent first)

• ✔️2025 – 17th Gangneung Tourism Souvenir Competition [Silver]: Gangneung Breakwater Bread (main branch signature bakery item) — such a great idea👍
• ✔️2024 – Korea Consumer Preferred Brand Awards [Grand Prize]: won in the brand category for Gangneung Sand
• ✔️2022 – 14th Gangneung Tourism Souvenir Competition [Gold]: Gangneung Sand (coffee, dried persimmon) 🏅 (the first sand cookie product to win a mayoral-level award)
• ✔️2021 – Gangneung Tourism Souvenir Competition [Bronze]: 'Persimmon, To You' — great naming sense👍
• ✔️2020 – Gangneung Tourism Souvenir Competition [Bronze]: Gangneung Coffee Tart

The 2nd floor also has plenty of seating, so groups can be accommodated, with a mix of 2- to 4-person tables. Add in the 3rd floor and there's a huge amount of seating! What could've been a plain front wall instead has a photo wall, giving the space a fresh feel!

Grab a photo here too haha — it's really cute.

Which Gangneung Sand flavors to pick, and how to order

The Gangneung Sand menu board

Before you order‼️ here's what the staff recommend:

• ✅When in Gangneung — coffee!
• ✅Need a sugar boost?! Dried persimmon~
• ✅Universally loved! Chodang corn
• ✅Thinking of your parents?! Black sesame
• ✅With kids?! Strawberry
• ✅The hot new item -> purple sweet potato~

Ordering is via kiosk, and you can only buy a full box of sand — no single-piece tastings, which was a bit disappointing!

The dried persimmon latte also looked distinctive and delicious — 'Persimmon, To You' 🤍

How did the Chodang corn and dried persimmon sand taste?

I only bought the sand — Chodang corn flavor and dried persimmon! For anyone deciding, here's my take: personally, the two flavors were pretty similar. The filling in both has a subtle taste of the actual ingredient, and the corn has a bit of texture, but I wished there was more of it inside (same for the persimmon). It was a fairly adventurous menu choice, but overall the flavor was pretty safe — exactly as expected.

✨The scent is out of this world! It'll make your mouth water✨ But~😉 next time I want to try completely different flavors — ✅️coffee and ✅️strawberry!

The engraved design on the sand is really perfect for a tourist souvenir! Great for sharing with friends or coworkers, and it gives off travel vibes too~ 👍👍 Would make a nice gift.

This is my review right after tasting it — ⭐️I think it would taste even better frozen!!⭐️

Storage: 14 days at room temperature / 30 days refrigerated / 90 days frozen