Coffee roastery brings live music to northeastern Seoul

Punk band Sweet Gasoline performs at Hoi Polloi's live music space in northeastern Seoul, Oct. 18, 2025. Courtesy of Chris Rettig

By Jon Dunbar

• Published May 14, 2026 5:00 AM KST
• Updated May 15, 2026 1:13 PM KST

Seoul's live music scene has mostly been clustered in the west, which is quite a pain for people living in other parts of the city. For those in the northeast, a small cafe in Nowon District's Gongneung-dong has been working to make live music more accessible.

Hoi Polloi is not the kind of cafe you'd want to go for quiet time or to study.

"We’ve ended up developing the interior space of the shop to be a bit uncomfortable for students to study in — only a couple outlets, the music can get kinda loud, the baking and general barista operations are often loud, our team is all friendly and talkative and we more or less welcome a lively crowd as opposed to a quiet workspace," Chris Rettig, co-owner of the cafe, told The Korea Times.

Hoi Polloi, which has been around for about seven years, including under a couple other names earlier on, got its current name after Rettig was listening to one of his favorite bands, The Most Serene Republic, and the song "Anhoi Polloi" came on.

"At the time, I actually didn’t know what 'hoi polloi' meant," he admitted. "After some digging, I realized that 'the masses' or 'common people' or 'normal people' really seemed to click. It was a bit of a hard sell to my wife and team at the shop, because it isn’t really easy to remember in Korean, but I guess it’s unique enough and has done well to stick in people’s heads."

The cafe carved out a niche by roasting coffees on the lighter side, and they offer baked goods that are catching on, especially the salt bread. Rettig said everything they sell is made, baked or roasted in house, without "weird syrups and sweeteners," and no "exorbitantly topped breads and cakes."

"From the beginning, it’s been a core principle that we do our best to keep things affordable for as many people as we can so that a wider demographic can experience some of the more interesting coffees that might otherwise have the annoying barrier of high prices," Rettig said.

He said he always dreamed about hosting small acoustic shows at the cafe, but plans never materialized due to lack of room. They used to do all their roasting at the shop, and as the business grew, the little space there was filled up with more machines for roasting and baking, and more ingredient storage. Eventually, a couple years ago, Rettig and his wife, who runs the business with him, decided to move the roasting operations to a different location. That space turned out to be large enough to host live music events.

He posted an Instagram story asking if anyone had the music equipment they needed to put on a show, and one of the cafe's regular customers ended up providing almost everything they needed. The first show in Hoi Polloi's basement space was held in November 2024, and it succeeded in drawing a crowd of people who might not have made the long trek across town to Hongdae, Itaewon or central Seoul.

"It was very bare bones and DIY, but the turnout was great," Rettig said. "I had an absolute blast doing it, and it felt like it more or less showed that there’s a demand for that type of thing in this area."

Over the next months, he saved money while scouring the internet for decent music equipment to put together a stage on a budget. He set a goal of having at least one show a month by the end of 2025, and has been able to surpass that amount.

"I used to play music, and so I guess I make it a top priority to make the sound in the space as good as I can with the equipment we have, and to make the musicians feel as comfortable and confident as possible," he said. "I think if they are having a good time, they’ll channel that to the audience and we all have a good time. They might also wanna come back and play again!"

Rettig said he's been finding ways to collaborate with neighboring businesses, offering guests discounts if they bring receipts from other shops and working to promote each other.

"The primary business here is the coffee roasting, so we currently don’t have any reliance on making money from the music side of things," he said. "Actually, we’ve 'lost' on most of the shows, buying drinks for musicians or for printing posters, etc. But to me, it’s all investment into building the space and the community over time, and I have a great time doing it."

Hoi Polloi has hosted various kinds of music, from rock and electronic to jazz. This includes acts like melodic punk band ...Whatever That Means, hardcore band Fail Fast, indie-pop soloist Lunar Isles, Bandits and heavy progressive stoner doom band Reasco.

"I have really enjoyed all of the shows we’ve hosted. It’s been a learning experience for me as well, and I just generally love being around the culture of it all," Rettig said.

"If I had to pick, I’d say that the punk or punk-adjacent shows have been the most fun; I think those crowds drink more and the whole thing is more lively, super high energy, and it might sound cheesy but I genuinely delight in seeing people let loose and have a good time. It’s funny — my wife would probably agree, but before starting all of this, she wouldn’t have ever listened to any punk or anything loud and shouty, but now she’s the one asking when the next punk show is. There’s a certain unique energy that live punk brings."

The venue has been praised by various bands that have performed there, who have emphasized the convenience it brought to an underserved part of the city, and appreciated the energy the crowd brings.

Jeff Moses, frontman of ...Whatever That Means, underscored the importance of this atmosphere.

"You don't need 100 people, you need 30 right people, and Hoi Polloi has it," he told The Korea Times drunkenly while standing outside a show there Feb. 21. "I'd rather play to 30 here than 100 passively nodding along somewhere else."

The cafe is open every day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

A show is planned for May 30, with the bands ...Whatever That Means, Smoking Goose, Pop Ents and Sweet Gasoline. Entry costs 25,000 won, with a possible discount of 5,000 won if you have a receipt from a partner business in the area.

Follow @hoipolloi.coffee.studio on Instagram for more information about the live music schedule.