Good afternoon! Or good morning or good evening or good night. Today’s café’s name embraces the duality of my blog, the possibility of conversations in different time zones, the Sea and the Seo. Or maybe I’m just looking for profundity where there is none. In any case, I only visited this café one, and not six, times.
It was the last day before the start of the 2nd semester, 2011, and I went to Seoul. This was about a year after the previous café in Samseong-dong that I posted about. The only records I have from this day come from pictures, and no journal entry. So I don’t quite remember why I ended up going to Samseong-dong (the one in Gangnam-gu, not the one in Gwanak-gu). I took a few pictures of buildings with interesting angles, as well as a few pictures of the Seonjeongneung burial grounds seen from outside. I also took a picture of what I called the “Are you happy?” café for a long time before I finally visited it in 2015.
Among these pictures and exploring, of course, was my requisite stop for coffee. In this case, the small but quirky ONE & SIX café.
Quirky because of the logo, as the spiral adds a sense of whimsy. But also slightly quirky due to a more colorful interior than we tend to see these days. I had my usual mocha and drank it to accompany a roll of kimbap… er, gimbap. Or was it one mocha and six pieces of 김밥?
Mocha at ONE & SIX coffee shop near Seolleung, August 2011
Even in my full resolution picture, I can’t quite make out what I was reading there. It is in English, but it doesn’t seem to be any book that I have or am familiar with. Perhaps it came from the shelves at ONE & SIX? In any case, it seems my visit there was a nice break from my exploring the neighborhood. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the visit, and the building it was in has been demolished and replaced. The only Naver Maps street view that shows it is from July 2010. A Chevrolet dealership now stands where ONE & SIX once stood. ONE & SIX got deep sixed.
{There does seem to be a chain called ONE&SIX COFFEE in Jeollanam-do (South Jeolla Province) but there’s no way to tell if it was related to this location in Seoul.}
Here’s a link to a Google Map to find the former location of ONE & SIX.
And here’s a link to a Naver Map of the former location of ONE & SIX.
Address: 서울특별시 강남구 삼성동 127-13
Korean name: 원앤식스
Final verdict: **
written in Seoul at Simple Matter Coffee Roasters, in Kkachisan. where a black sesame seed Einspanner and later a complimentary hand-drip coffee assisted in the composition.
cafeseaseo 