Kyungdong 1960 Mutual Growth Fund: How Starbucks Supports a Seoul Traditional Market

The Kyungdong 1960 mutual growth fund is the key community promise behind Starbucks Kyungdong 1960: a store built not only to serve coffee, but also to support Seoul’s Kyungdong Market. The fund is created by setting aside 300 won for each item sold at the store, and its first reported use was a market environment improvement project in June 2023. ¹

Starbucks Kyungdong 1960 opened in December 2022 inside the remodeled former Kyungdong Theater, a space that had originally opened in the 1960s and later stopped operating as a cinema. The store sits on the third and fourth floors of Kyungdong Market’s main building in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, with about 200 seats. ¹ That setting matters because the mutual growth fund is tied closely to the store’s identity: a modern cafe placed inside a traditional market, with a structure designed to return part of its sales activity to the surrounding community.

What the Kyungdong 1960 Mutual Growth Fund Is

The fund is part of Starbucks Korea’s Community Store model. Starbucks Korea describes Kyungdong 1960 as its fifth Community Store, created through a four-party mutual growth agreement with the Korea Commission for Corporate Partnership, the Kyungdong Market Merchants Association, and KD Market. The official Community Store page says the store is intended to support local infrastructure improvement, job creation, and mutual growth programs. ²

In practical terms, the model is easy to understand: for each item sold at Kyungdong 1960, 300 won is accumulated for the Kyungdong Market mutual growth fund. ¹ Segye Ilbo also reported that Starbucks, the Korea Commission for Corporate Partnership, the Kyungdong Market Merchants Association, and KD Market signed the mutual growth agreement, and that the same 300-won-per-item structure would be used to build the fund. ³

That small-per-item setup is important because it connects everyday customer purchases to longer-term local support. A single drink or food order may not seem dramatic, but the fund was designed to accumulate through repeated sales at a destination store that has drawn public attention for its unusual location and renovation story.

The First Reported Use: Repainting a Market Entrance

The first reported mutual growth activity using the fund took place on June 25, 2023, when Starbucks Korea carried out painting work at the entrance to Kyungdong Market’s parking lot. Chosun Biz reported on June 27, 2023, that the project used the community mutual growth fund created at Kyungdong 1960, with participation from the Kyungdong Market Merchants Association and Starbucks Kyungdong 1960 partners. ⁴

This may sound like a modest project, but it fits the fund’s stated purpose clearly. Traditional markets often depend on everyday infrastructure: entrances, signs, shared facilities, and the physical details that shape how comfortable and accessible a place feels to visitors. Improving a parking lot entrance is not just cosmetic; it can make the market easier to recognize, enter, and navigate.

The store manager, Lee Da-hyun of Starbucks Kyungdong 1960, said she felt proud that the traditional market mutual growth fund could be “even a small help” in improving Kyungdong Market’s environment. ⁴ The quote is brief, but it captures the tone of the project: not a sweeping transformation claim, but a concrete local improvement funded through the store’s sales-linked program.

Chosun Biz also reported that Starbucks planned additional projects after that first activity, including reinstalling aging signs, painting the market’s main building, new building, and annex, improving common facilities, and holding collaborative events with Kyungdong Market. ⁴ The source material does not provide completed results for all of those plans, so the clearest confirmed outcome remains the June 2023 parking lot entrance painting project.

Why This Fund Matters for the Market-Cafe Relationship

Kyungdong 1960 attracted attention partly because of its space. Remodeling a former theater into a Starbucks inside a traditional market gave the store a distinctive character from the beginning. But the mutual growth fund is what turns the project from a striking renovation into a more structured relationship with the market around it.

E Today reported in August 2023 that Kyungdong 1960 was being operated with mutual growth as a central keyword, and that the fund accumulated from 300 won per sold item had been used for the June 2023 parking lot entrance painting work. ⁵ That report also described the store as a specialized location attracting many visitors even on weekdays. ⁵ In other words, the store’s popularity and the fund mechanism were connected: more customer activity could mean more resources available for local projects.

Still, the broader effect on the market was not presented as perfectly uniform. Global Economic reported in February 2023 that the opening of Kyungdong 1960 brought younger visitors into Kyungdong Market, and that some merchants felt a rise in sales. One merchant was quoted as saying business had become “much better” after Starbucks opened. ⁶ At the same time, another merchant pointed to a gap, saying there were not enough snacks or foods that younger customers liked, which limited the win-win effect. ⁶

That mixed response is worth keeping in view. A well-known cafe can bring foot traffic, attention, and a new reason to visit, but a traditional market’s success depends on how that traffic spreads across nearby shops and shared spaces. The mutual growth fund is one answer to that challenge because it creates a formal channel for reinvestment, rather than relying only on indirect spillover.

The Kyungdong 1960 mutual growth fund is best understood as a practical experiment in connecting a global cafe brand with a local market community. Its confirmed structure is simple: 300 won from each sold item goes toward the Kyungdong Market fund, and its first reported project improved the parking lot entrance in June 2023. As a model, it shows how Starbucks Kyungdong 1960’s most meaningful story may not be only the remodeled theater space, but also the ongoing question of how a destination store can contribute to the neighborhood around it.

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joanna jang

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