latest album promo image of Key wearing all black, with black and white shoes and a black and white knit hat, sitting with his jacket opengif of Key performing “Good and Great” wearing a fuzzy pink hat and fuzzy purple sweater; he’s doing an ending fairy where he lifts up the brim of his hat to look at the camera
September 23rd was Key’s birthday, so on that Sunday, the 24th, it was time for another round of birthday cafes!
Kim KiBum (김기범), better known as Key, is a member of Shinee as well as an actor, songwriter, fashion designer, television presenter… He’s very well known and well-loved even outside of the idol world for his funny personality on variety television shows and his love for recreating girl group dance moves. He’s definitely not a cookie-cutter idol and is known for his love of fashion and his personal, unique style. He’s released two studio albums and an EP was released on September 11th, 2023, just a week before his 32nd birthday.
He knows English and his livestreams are usually a bit chaotic. He has a great sense of humor and can be sassy and sarcastic at times. I would argue that out of all the Korean idols out there, he has the most potential to have his popularity go global.
My friends helped me by searching Twitter for birthday cafe locations, which I then used to create a dedicated map in Naver Maps. (I don’t use Twitter.) There were at least 9 alone in the Hongdae area (where many birthday cafes are located in Seoul) so we decided to focus on that area.
screenshot of a Naver Maps collection entitled “키 BDay Shenanigans”
We decided to go to the cafes on Sunday as it would be less busy and my friend was traveling in via bus from Daejeon. Our first stop was Cafe Monggeul Sky Branch (카페몽글 하늘점). This is a popular spot for birthday cafes, judging by the wall of paper birthday cups they had on display and for sale.
digital advertisement featuring a picture of the birthday paper cup, film strip with pictures of Key, and information about the birthday cafe’s hours, gifts, and hashtag to use on social media; I loved the blue color they used for thissignage outside the cafefirst iced americano of the day in a cute engraved glassvarious pastries on displaycute pink neon sign of the cafe’s name, next to some pictures and idol autographsbirthday paper cup and plastic sleeve with photo cards and small cards; I put everything together so I don’t have close-up images of what each cafe offered
I ordered the iced americano set and only drank about half of it, trying to pace my caffeine intake. We went around noon and there were only a few other guests in the cafe.
fan made photocards on a table with a fuzzy pink covering and cherry blossom scent diffusera cute little blue locker with the right side open to display a stack of the birthday cups, and there are pictures of Key on the outside of the left closed side of the lockerthree tiered shelves with pictures of Key and some stacked birthday cups and a Shinee lightstick at the bottomanother three tiered shelf with more pictures of Key and random cute things like books and teddy bearsyet another three tiered shelf of pictures and random cute itemsanother three tiered shelf with picturesthey really loved these three tiered shelves for pictures and random cute itemscute pink wavy mirror with some pictures attached by a string at the top, some handwriting in blue on the mirror itself and a llama hanging out to the left sideclose-up of a table featuring pictures of Key, a pink teddy bear and some pink flowerstorn out pictures of Key from Shinee’s latest album posted on a wall, along with the CDstacks of birthday cups, some with several in a stack, for display and purchase; I actually love this idea for fans that are unable to visit birthday cafes on the birthday weekends or new fans
Cafe number 2, Cafe Nita (카페니타) was right across the street, and had previously hosted Jonghyun’s birthday.
digital advertisement featuring a picture of the birthday paper cup, information about the birthday cafe’s hours, gifts, and hashtag to use on social media; I loved the magazine template they used for thissignage in the window of Cafe Nitabright yellow shelf featuring pictures of Key along with some random itemsclose-up of the shelf, including a birthday cup tower ad unlit candlesfloating shelves with pictures of Key on stage and a signboard reading “Daily BumkeyK”bottom of the yellow shelf featuring more pictures and a retro music player playing musicpuppy wall! featuring pictures of Key’s dogs, CommeDes and Garçonsdisplay of stacked birthday cups and the items you can get at the cafe for Key’s birthdaywall of photos and two red heart balloonsballoons spelling out “happy birthday” above a monitor playing videos, and in front are two stand-up figures of his puppies wearing bows that say “he raised me, thank you” in Koreanposter featuring gifts you can get at the cafegift items: paper cup, macarons, pictures and photocards, and I chose the cherry adeKey’s pups’ pictures printed on the macarons
I love the layout of this cafe, the yellow shelves, and absolutely loved that they had a wall dedicated to Key’s dogs. Psst: You can follow his dogs on Instagram here.
Our third cafe was Cafe HighTown (하이타운서울) which was also located in the same block. I really like how this cafe leaned into the uniqueness that Key brings to the table as an artist.
colorful digital advertisement featuring a picture of the birthday paper cup, information about the birthday cafe’s hours, gifts, and hashtag (#how_to_be_scary_and_cute) to use on social media
I loved that this cafe chose to show off Key’s weirdness. There is a plushie version of Bok-sillee, a mascot of sorts that was “rescued” by Key during his Gasoline album era. It has long arms and legs and is covered in fur–pink for the head and body, purple for the arms, and blue for the legs. It has two big, surprised eyes but no other facial features on its round head. On the table with a monitor were several different versions of his albums, from a VHS version to a cassette tape version… and an ipod even makes an appearance.
hanging poster and A-frame reading “Too Cute to Watch, Too Wild To Touch”table covered with a black and white checkered cloth, computer monitor, and various pictures and itemspegboard behind the monitor with pictures of KeyBok-sillee, an ipod, a VHS all hanging out on the tablea Nintendo Super Famicom with a disc entered that has a logo for Key’s “Killer” albumclose-up of the “Bad Love” cassette tape“Bad Love” era postersa guestbook was on the table, along with a bunch of stickers you can add to the poster of your favorite version of Key: blonde hair vs. black hair, ball cap vs. beret (black hair and beret seem to have the most stickers)this poster says summer vs. winter, glasses vs lens model (winter and glasses seem to have the most stickers)view of the tiny cafe, filled with people sitting at the few tablesposter reading “Too Cute to Watch Too Wild to Touch”the pouch cold brew I received with a colorful sticker on the front and a paperclip holding a “guest check” that has pink font reading “Am I Scary and Cute?” I really loved this little pouch of cold brew
Cafe four, Cafe Brown City (브라운시티 본점) was along the way to the cafe that my friend really wanted to go to, so we stopped in. From the outset, this did not look like your average birthday party cafe.
two story building with a giant poster of Key in a bedazzled outfit posted in the window near the second storyin a stark contrast to the other digital advertisements, this one features nothing but the black and white themed birthday paper cup against a black background
As you can see, even the poster was in a much different style. This cafe went with Classy Key (or should I say Klassy Key?) and interested me because they made drinks other than americanos. (Specialty pour overs? With, I think, an option for Kalita, Hario, and Clever brewing? Be still, my heart.)
poster declaring “Key Day” at the front of the cafeposter of Key in a beige bedazzled suit, below a fancy light fixturetable display of stacks of the birthday cups along with pictures of Key; on the shelves you can see some coffee equipment like hand grinders and cezve, traditional Turkish coffee potsclose-up of the pictures and birthday cup stackpictures of Key sitting on the top of the wrap-around seating area–this cafe was quite spaciouspictures of bedazzled Key on stageposter of Key in a blue houndstooth suita small white vase of orange and yellow flowers on a small table meant for two people, below a window with tied-back sheer curtainsperformance pictures of Key in his “Hard” stage outfitmirror decorated with square photos that seem to be taken from Key’s instagramposter of Key wearing a white suit with pearls and gems and holding a microphone while gazing lovingly at the crowda gray and black Slayer espresso machine topped with stacks of white paper cups with dark brown cup sleevestwo menus posted side-by-side, one with regular espresso drinks and desserts and the other with their pour over offeringsbirthday paper cup, bottle of lemon iced tea, stickers, postcard, an adorable boarding pass, 3×5 picture, and a sugar cookie in Bok-sillee’s imageclose-up of the cookie
Our last stop was Cafe Cookied (카페쿠키드). We actually walked past one of the other Key cafes but decided to hit up this one first, since my friend wanted to go here.
big poster on the window of the cafe, featuring Key in a black cat-eared hat with a black and purple Kuromi themepurple and black posters covering the windows of the cafe from the insidea picture of my blue Shinee lightstick held up towards the posters of Key on the wall (in which he has blue-tinted hair)white fake fireplace featuring pictures of Key, flowers, and his name spelled out in wooden cut-out blocksvarious photos of Key in his Bok-sillee costumesome sort of wooden easel featuring recent pictures of Keypart of the cafe’s aesthetic: a teddy bear leaning against a light, glass vases of fake flowers and scent diffusers, fake booksinterior seating of the cafestack of birthday cups on the countera poster asking you to vote for her your favorite “retro Key”; “Gasoline” seems to be beating “Bad Love” and “Killer”table of random plushies and toys (Sanrio and other) and pictures of Keyclose-up of the table featuring two mini Bok-silleecafe goodies: pictures and photocards, the birthday cup, and the green grape ade I got in a plastic bottle
After that, we were hungry, so we stopped into Spacca Napoli for some Italian-style brick oven pizza.
this was on the menu as a kind of “folded” pizza with mozzarella and mortadella and it was delicious
I was tired because I was still recovering from the side effects of Covid, so I called it a day and happened to see this in the subway before I left to go home:
lighted digital signboard featuring a close-up of a picture of Key on stage and “Kim Kibum Happy Birthday” in Korean
Another thing many fans will do is purchase ad space in some of the bigger subway stations in Seoul to wish idols a happy birthday.
Whose birthday cafe(s) will I go to next? (In all honesty, I’d like to go to a music program like MusicBank or Inkigayo but my chances seem slim, and they also record at like, 4 in the morning. Same goes for fan-signs. But who knows what the future holds…)
Koffee & Kpop 
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