Viral Bread Taxi turns Daejeon into Korea’s bakery pilgrimage capital

Ahn Sung-woo, operator of Daejeon’s Bread Taxi tourism service, poses in front of his vehicle in Daejeon, May 6. Korea Times photo by Ryu Hyo-jin

By Hankookilbo

• Published May 16, 2026 12:05 AM KST

After failure and illness, Daejeon driver turns hardship into booked-out bakery tours

“The taxi is booked through the end of the year. For the bus, you can reserve through the travel site.”

These were Ahn Sung-woo’s words, said from behind the wheel of his “Bread Taxi,” answering call after call from customers hoping to book his bakery tour in Daejeon.

The phone has barely stopped ringing since the 64-year-old driver started Bread Taxi, a service that takes passengers to bakeries around Daejeon, and went viral on social media. His taxi has become almost as familiar as Sungsimdang, Daejeon’s famed bakery.

At Daejeon Station on May 6, Ahn handed “bakery pilgrimage” certificates to passengers who had completed the bakery tour, his playful name for the route he takes through various Daejeon bakeries. The passengers beamed as they received the certificates and posed for photos.

To keep up with surging demand, Ahn began operating a Bread Bus in May. Even after passengers left, reservation calls and text messages arrived every few minutes.

When asked how his life changed since the Bread Taxi took off, he said, “These days are the happiest.”

Ahn’s route to the Bread Taxi was far from smooth. He endured business failure and a life-threatening illness, with doctors once telling him he might have only years to live.

Curiosity leads to computers

Ahn majored in civil engineering at university, but a chance decision changed his trajectory. After a friend told him there were many female students in a liberal arts class called Electronic Data Processing Systems, he enrolled and became fascinated by computers.

After completing his military service, Ahn joined Hyundai Engineering & Construction and worked on field design changes at Yeonggwang Nuclear Power Plant, now known as Hanbit Nuclear Power Plant, in South Jeolla Province. There, he watched employees from Bechtel and Westinghouse, U.S. companies in charge of nuclear plant design and supervision, use computers to finish calculations far faster than Korean workers around them.

“The Westinghouse people handled work really quickly,” he said. “Calculations that would take two or three days produced results in half a day. It turned out they had brought computers and were working with them.”

Ahn began using computers in his own work and learned to write programs. In his mid-30s, he teamed up with members of a computer club to launch a company that built a 3D geographic information system.

The venture failed, but Ahn did not despair. He treated failure as a period of learning.

Travel review leads to Bread Taxi

The Bread Taxi grew out of the travel industry, where Ahn worked in the early 2000s. He often traveled overseas with his family, and a review he posted on a travel agency website became popular. Travel companies approached him with offers, and he began planning tour packages.

The work took him to Japan, China, Hong Kong and elsewhere, helping him develop an eye for turning local food into a travel experience. In 2005, during a business trip to Shikoku, Japan, an “udon taxi” left a lasting impression. The service connected travelers with noodle restaurants in areas that were difficult to access, turning local food into a cultural tourism product.

Ahn thought Korea could create an urban version of that idea. As he planned travel products, he became familiar with restaurants and bakeries in different cities. After retiring early, he began shaping the idea that would become the Bread Taxi.

“Before starting the Bread Taxi, I set two standards,” he said. “Let’s think about an item people would really like and never forget. And let’s provide service through the customer’s eyes. Then the answer became clear.”

More than money

Ahn obtained a taxi driver’s license around 2022 as preparation for the business. He worked at a taxi firm for three years while refining the plan to combine taxis with bakery tours.

The Bread Taxi launched last November and spread by word of mouth faster than he expected. Videos spread on social media, and broadcasters picked up the story.

But the more attention the service drew, the more trouble it faced. Daejeon City ordered him to stop operating, citing the Passenger Transport Service Act.

“There were parts that felt unfair,” Ahn said, offering a wry smile as he recalled the period. “But it is not as if getting angry solves anything.”

Instead of complaining, he looked for a way to keep his promise to customers who had already booked. For three months, he borrowed his wife’s car, continued offering the tours for free, and paid for fuel and operating costs out of pocket. He also prepared bottled water, drinks and snack packages for passengers.

“When I saw people happy, that became the most important thing,” he said.

His wife and two daughters opposed the taxi work because they worried about his health. People around him also asked why he kept going when the city had blocked the service. But Ahn said he could not stop after seeing how citizens responded.

“When I was operating the free Bread Taxi, people liked it so much,” he said. “If the car got scratched, they came to help and cheered me on. I endured while seeing those reactions.”

Sungsimdang also lent support. Ahn said the bakery’s chairman told him to request what he needed. He asked for chef hats for the bakery tour, and the chairman provided 300.

Since March, Ahn has operated the Bread Taxi as a paid service under Daejeon’s premium taxi system. Daejeon City introduced the system in 2024 to meet various tourism demands. Premium taxi operators can set and register their own fares, but vehicles must have engines of at least 2,800cc.

Ahn pooled his money to buy a qualifying vehicle and cover related costs. Reservations are now booked through the end of the year.

Hard years before Bread Taxi

Behind the Bread Taxi’s success are years when Ahn wondered whether he would survive at all. While working as a branch manager at a travel company, he twice came close to death. In 2016, he collapsed from overwork, underwent emergency surgery and barely survived. He could not breathe properly, and chest pain continued. Doctors diagnosed him with severe coronary artery disease.

“At the hospital, they said, ‘How are you alive with this body?’ and ‘You can live about four more years from now,’” he said.

Two years after the first surgery, he was hospitalized again because of excessive bleeding. He still takes heart and vascular medication. His health has improved, but his family still worries.

“At first, my wife opposed the Bread Taxi, but now she has even quit her company and is helping me,” he said. “She is doing it with me to take care of a husband who keeps running without brakes.

For Ahn, the hardest part was not the prospect of failure. It was wanting to work while his body would not keep up.

“I had business failures both when I was young and when I got older, but that could be because I was not prepared enough or because I was unlucky, and I could work again and recover,” he said. “But when my body was sick, it was not easy to get my mind under control. I could not stand up or walk, and I often had paralysis in my right arm and fainting spells. My family and acquaintances say it is a miracle that I am working like this now.”

Because doctors once told him he might have only years to live, Ahn said he views each day differently now.

“I am so happy to be able to extend my life even a little,” he said. “I am grateful just for the fact that I am alive. Because I am not dead yet, I only have the mind to learn more, work more and do better. I want to become someone useful and a source of happiness for my family and everyone around me for the rest of my life.”

Putting Korea on travelers’ bucket lists

His dream now reaches beyond one taxi and one city. He wants the Bread Taxi to help make Daejeon’s bakery scene more visible to travelers around the world.

“Someday, I hope that ‘if you go to Korea, you must eat bread in Daejeon’ becomes part of a global bucket list,” he said. “It would be even better if not only Daejeon but also all regions of Korea, including Gwangju, Mokpo, Busan and Seoul, become places people must visit.”

He also had advice for young people.

“I think hardships are only minor hurdles,” he said. “Failure just highlights where I need to improve. Looking back on my life, no matter what you do, I really want to tell people not to give up easily.”

Ahn said he still feels excited about guiding passengers through bakery alleys the next day, and the day after that. Ahn keeps a guestbook in the taxi, treating the handwritten notes like treasure. Passengers have filled the pages with messages, including one that reads, “Please stay healthy for a long time.”

“Sometimes when I feel tired, I gain strength by reading every record left there,” he said. “If passengers can feel as if they are flying first class and make happy memories, what could be more valuable than that?”

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.