Yangsan bakery café mammoth bread and leftovers to go: Choi

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Choi Main Branch (초이베이커리카페) is a large bakery café in Hopo at 83 Yangsan-daero, Dongmyeon, Yangsan-si, Gyeongnam. Both the first-floor bakery and second-floor café run daily from 09:00 to 21:50, and parking is available.

• Address: 83 Yangsan-daero, Dongmyeon, Yangsan-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea
• Hours: Daily, 2F café 09:00 - 21:50 / 1F bakery 09:00 - 21:50
• Parking: Available
• Other: Takeout, Wi-Fi, separate men's/women's restrooms, high chairs, group-friendly, easy payment, parking, no-kids zone

A regular since the Haewoldang days, over 10 visits and counting

Today I'm revisiting Choi Bakery Café, a bakery café by Hopo Station in Yangsan. This isn't a place I dropped by once or twice and wrote up — I've been coming here regularly for a long time. I've come with my husband, with friends, with my parents, more than 10 times. At first I knew it as Haewoldang, but at some point it became Choi Bakery Café. Funnily enough, even after the name changed, I kept coming back, drawn by the taste of the bread.

A first-floor bakery where the lineup keeps changing

The fun of Choi Bakery Café is the first-floor bread display. The variety is huge, so it's fun just to browse — not only classic breads but also whatever's trending at the moment, which I always end up curious enough to try. It's fun and it's delicious.

Today I told myself: just get one bread and have it with coffee, simple. Then the magic of standing in front of the display fills the tray! Plans changed the second I stood there haha. In the end I loaded up 4 breads. Still, I'm kind of proud I stopped at 4 haha.

There's also a variety of cakes on display, and honestly, if calories didn't count, I'd want to dig in with a spoon just from how they look.

On one side you can actually watch the bread being made — fair warning, the buttery, sugary smell might get you a little intoxicated!

How to order, second-floor seating, and weekday daytime crowds

At Choi Bakery Café, you pick your bread on the first floor and order your drink there too, then take the buzzer up to the second floor to find a seat. Since drinks are made on the second floor, all you need to do is carry the buzzer up and grab a table. The space is pretty roomy overall.

Even large cafés often run out of seats, but today being a weekday meant plenty of room. Even on weekends when it gets busy, I've never seen it so packed there's nowhere to sit — though of course, how busy it is depends on the time and day.

The third-floor rooftop, best once it cools down

The third floor has a rooftop space. I don't love it in this muggy weather, but once it cools down a bit, it'll be great for sitting up there.

What I've learned to love about this place over multiple visits

Every seat looks out at the Nakdong River through floor-to-ceiling windows — it's an eye-opening view. Visiting Choi Bakery Café in Hopo, Yangsan multiple times, I've realized the appeal isn't just that there's a lot of bread. The variety is wide, you can watch bread being baked right in front of you, and it always feels like something new is on the shelves, so there's real fun in checking what's new each visit.

If you're like me and enjoy sitting in a café for hours chatting about this and that, you'll probably like it here. When I pick a café, the taste of the drinks matters, but so does how comfortable the space feels. Here, the seat spacing and overall sense of openness meant it never felt cramped, and that won me over.

The mammoth bread I always get, and packing the leftovers

Whenever I come to Choi Bakery Café, I always end up getting the mammoth bread — I recommend trying it at least once. Rich but not overpowering? Pairs beautifully with coffee? There are probably a lot of adults like me who love this kind of classic, old-school bread.

Highly recommend it if you're visiting with bread-loving family, catching up with a friend over leisurely café time, or just suddenly craving good bread mid-drive! There are bags near the elevator so you can pack up whatever's left. I took my mammoth bread home with me.