Gangneung seaside café for 100% apple juice and sea-gazing: Baegya

Baegya Coffee, an ocean-view café in Gangneung

Why Baegya Coffee on a Gangneung trip with an injured foot

Baegya Coffee is an ocean-view café at 607 Haean-ro in Gangneung, right across the street from the sea. My broken toe is going on two weeks now and it's still not healed.. T T

I came to Gangneung but with my foot hurting, getting around to a lot of places wasn't really possible. So instead of cramming the trip full of stops, I went looking for somewhere I could just relax and look at the ocean — and that place was Baegya Coffee, an ocean-view café in Gangneung.

When I'm looking for an ocean-view café in Gangneung, the sea view matters, but I also check whether the space is comfortable enough to stay in for a long time. Baegya Coffee turned out to be a place that was comfortable and nice even for a long stay.

The sea is right across the street from the store. It seems a lot of foreign visitors come to Gangneung too.. watching the passersby across the street, there were quite a lot of foreigners.

Baegya Coffee hours, address and parking

• 🚩Address: 607 Haean-ro, 1st–3rd floor, Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea
• ⏰Hours: Daily 09:00–21:00 (last order 20:30)
• ✅Amenities: Group seating available, takeout, separate men's/women's restrooms, high chairs, solo seats, couple seats, rooftop
• 🅿️Parking: In front of the store, or a second-floor lot up the hill behind the building. The public lot across the street by the beach also works

The parking was convenient — not just in front of the store, but there's also a very spacious lot if you go up the hill behind the building.

Floors 1 to 4: a different sea view on every level

Baegya Coffee is a large Gangneung café where each of the four floors has its own atmosphere to check out. Going up floor by floor, the seating mood shifted a little each time, and the sea outside the window looked slightly different from every level.

1st floor: ordering counter and bakery display

Baegya Coffee has two branches — the main one that faces the sea, and the Gangneung Station branch. This is the main branch.

The 1st floor is where you order drinks and pick out bakery items right as you walk in. The counter is on the 1st floor, so you have to order there.

True to its reputation as a large Gangneung bakery, it was fun just browsing the bread on display.

At a café on a trip, just having coffee and leaving always feels a bit lacking — but with tempting bakery items on top of it, I naturally ended up staying longer. If you're looking for a Gangneung bakery café, this is a good spot to enjoy coffee and bread together.

There were plenty of tables on the 1st floor too, but we decided to head upstairs..

2nd floor: table types and seating

There were so many different kinds of tables, which I really liked.

4th-floor rooftop: sky stairs and the no-kids rule

The 4th-floor rooftop has some sky stairs and a great ocean view, so on a nice-weather day the rooftop would probably be quite popular. Since there's a fall risk on the 4th-floor rooftop, it's a no-kids zone.

Sea-gazing from the 3rd-floor window seats

After looking around several floors, we settled into a spot on the 3rd floor of Baegya Coffee. Sitting by the window looking at the sea, it felt like a proper trip even without going anywhere else.

Watching the waves and the horizon for a long while, my mind settled down — it was exactly the kind of time the phrase 'sea-gazing' (바다멍) was made for.

The view was relaxing enough that I almost forgot the disappointment of not being able to walk much with my hurt foot. Thanks to the spacious layout, Baegya Coffee seemed like a good place both for quietly having coffee alone and for sitting with family or friends to chat. The Gyeongpodae café area has a lot of spots where you can enjoy the sea up close, so it's also great for a quick rest while out driving.

Corn ice cream and 100% apple juice at Baegya Coffee

Baegya Coffee's signature menu item is the corn ice cream, so I ordered that too.

What I liked most was that after checking out the seating on every floor, you get to pick the spot that suits your taste.

There are plenty of cafés in Gangneung, but on a day when moving around feels like too much, a place where you can enjoy coffee, bread and the ocean view all in one spot feels even more welcome. If you're having one of those days on your trip where your condition makes it hard to move around much, like me, sitting and resting while looking at the sea can still make for a plenty good trip.

Stop by when you want to see the wide-open sea at an ocean-view café in Gangneung, or when you want to enjoy bread and coffee together at a large Gangneung bakery.

The 100% apple juice comes in a pretty bottle. It would also suit anyone looking for a relaxed time at a Gyeongpo café.

Baegya Coffee's corn ice cream wasn't too sweet, and the combination of chewy corn kernels and ice cream was really nice. Too bad about the backlighting in the photo.

On this Gangneung trip, I think the leisurely sea-gazing time I spent at Baegya Coffee is going to stick in my memory for a long while.