Busan's city brand shop celebrating 'Busan Is Good'—locally designed goods, Busan city collaborations, and original character merchandise.
Best for Locally developed Busan design goods and souvenirs
BIG Shop, which stands for 'Busan Is Good,' opened on November 25, 2024, to promote Busan's urban identity and charm. The two-level shop features exhibitions and pop-ups from Busan City Brand partners on the first floor, including collaborations with well-known brands and Busan's original characters Boogi and GGODEUNGO. The second floor houses the main shopping area with products from 53 partner companies, including city brand design contest winners and SAGAGSAGAG brand goods reflecting Busan's core values: Global, Open, Original, and Dynamic. The range spans food, fashion, and crafts celebrating local Busan identity.
A bookselling alley with independent shops carrying used and new books, including specialist comic-book stores. The bookshops developed after Korea's liberation and the area became known as Bosu-dong Book Street.
Best for Used and new books, plus specialist comic-book stores
Stained-glass craft studio in Busan's Hadan-dong neighborhood offering reservation-based one-day classes in mirrors, trays, and suncatchers. The studio also runs tufting workshops using recycled paper.
Best for Stained-glass craft studio in Busan's Hadan-dong neighborhood offering reservation-based one-day classes
Cheongwol Glass is a stained glass studio in Hadan-dong, in the Saha-gu district of Busan, about six minutes on foot from exit 1 of Hadan station on Busan Metro Line 1. The studio has been featured on television several times, and its front room displays finished stained glass pieces and small accessories that visitors can look over before a class. Teaching is the core of the business. The one-day glass craft class is built for beginners and keeps to simple projects. Each session starts with an apron and gloves and sleeves, along with an explanation of how to use the tools safely. The teacher guides students step by step and helps with anything they find difficult, and photographs can be taken during the session. Mirrors and trays and suncatchers are the pieces students make. Alongside the one-day classes the studio runs hobby classes and takes customised requests. Art classes and tufting workshops using recycled paper run beside the glass work. Classes operate on a reservation system, and after booking there is a consultation about the piece a student wants to make, with a pattern prepared in advance where that consultation calls for one. Enquiries go through Instagram messages or Naver Talk rather than a booking form. The studio stands on the first floor at 27 Nakdongnam-ro 1373beon-gil, which the same listing gives as the address for visitors arriving on foot.
A souvenir shop gathering products from Busan-based small companies, including stationery, handmade goods, cosmetics, food, and daily-use items. The shop opened at the Busan Eurasia Platform in November 2020.
Best for Stationery, handmade goods, and food from Busan small companies at the Eurasia
A large traditional market selling agricultural produce, electronics, general goods, cosmetics, and other merchandise through multiple independent stalls. Its present form developed from post-liberation trading and refugee-run stalls during and after the Korean War.
Best for Large traditional market selling agricultural produce, electronics, general goods, cosmetics
Momos Coffee roasts on Busan's Yeongdo island, led by Jeongsoo Pak and Jooyeon Jeon. It sells whole beans, drip bags and cold brew alongside home-cafe gear and subscription plans.
Best for Competition-grade coffee from a 2019 World Barista Champion's direct-trade roastery
Momos Coffee began in 2007 as a 140-square-foot take-out coffee bar converted from a restaurant storeroom in Busan's Yeongdo district, founded by Hyunki Lee alongside Jooyeon Jeon, Jungsoo Park and Jueun Jeong. The shop pivoted toward specialty coffee after 2009 and has bought direct since 2011, traveling to origin and building relationships with more than 150 partner farms across over 20 countries. In 2019, co-founder Jooyeon Jeon won the World Barista Championship — the first Korean champion, the first winner from outside the capital region, and only the second woman to take the title in the competition's history. The brand added further expertise in 2021 when Charlie Chu, that year's World Cup Tasters Champion, joined to lead quality control, the same year Momos opened its Yeongdo roastery in a converted warehouse where roasting is visible from the counter. Momos now runs four stores across Busan and appears on the World's Best Coffee Shops list. Its menu still centers on the milk-and-espresso drinks that built the original stand's following, alongside single origins roasted on site and sold as retail bags. The line from a converted storeroom to a globally ranked roastery runs through direct trade and competition-level technique, not scale.
A Busan specialty-coffee roastery that began in a 140-square-foot storage room in 2007 and now direct-trades with over 150 producers across 16 countries. Its team includes South Korea's first World Barista Champion.
Best for Direct-trade specialty coffee from a Busan roastery
Momos began in 2007 as four friends -- Hyunki Lee, Jooyeon Jeon, Jungsoo Park and Jueun Jeong -- converting a roughly 140-square-foot restaurant storage room in Yeongdo, Busan, into a take-out coffee bar. Two years later they encountered specialty coffee and rebuilt the business around it, and since 2011 have practiced direct trade, traveling to origin to buy from producers rather than through importers; the company now works with more than 150 producers across 16 countries. The investment in sourcing has paid off in competition results rarely seen outside far larger operations: co-founder Jooyeon Jeon became the first Korean to win the World Barista Championship in 2019, and teammate Kyeongha Chu followed with the 2021 World Cup Tasters Championship. Sprudge has named Momos a World's Notable Roaster, and the company placed 22nd on the World's 100 Best Coffee Shops list. What started as a 140-square-foot storage room now runs four stores across Busan -- the flagship among them -- built entirely around beans the founders selected and priced themselves at farm level. For a city not usually associated with third-wave coffee, Momos has done as much as any single business to put Busan on the specialty map, competition medals included.
Independent bookstore, micro-cinema and cafe in Busan's Hwamyeong-dong - indie and small-press books, art-house film screenings, reading groups, and drinks including beer and wine, in one basement space.
Best for Books and cultural events in this independent Busan space
Mousai is an independent cultural space in Hwamyeong-dong, Buk-gu, Busan, combining a bookstore, a small independent cinema, a cafe and a meeting/event room in one basement-level location. The name comes from the Muses of Greek mythology and is used locally to suggest a place for losing yourself in thought. It stocks independent and small-press books and screens independent films, alongside running reading groups and arts-education programming; the cafe serves coffee and juice as well as beer and wine. It is reachable from Hwamyeong Station (Busan Metro Line 2, Exit 6), about a five-minute walk away. Public listings describe it as a genuine neighborhood cultural venue rather than a conventional retail bookstore, closer to a small arts center that happens to sell books.
Orange Bada near Gwangalli Beach in Busan sells souvenirs made with local artists and makers. Postcards and smaller objects take their cues from the seaside city. The shop also offers creative activities, including the chance to make a postcard of your own.
Best for Busan-inspired postcards and small souvenirs
Samjin Eomuk has made Busan fish cake since 1953 at its Yeongdo main store, 36 Taejong-ro 99beon-gil, where the third-generation company still produces and sells. In December 2013 it opened the country's first bakery-style eomuk counter, and the Yeongdo store now adds a history hall with eomuk-making sessions. Branches have followed in Lotte department stores and overseas from Singapore in 2017.
Best for Busan fish cake (eomuk)
Samjin Eomuk has made fish cake in Busan since 1953. Its main store still stands where production began, at 36 Taejong-ro 99beon-gil in Yeongdo-gu, in the Bongnae-dong district. The company, Samjin Food, is now in its third generation under representative Park Yong-jun. It frames its work as building a food culture on fish protein. In December 2013 it opened what it calls the country's first eomuk bakery. That format sells fish cake in bakery style from counters rather than only as an ingredient for soups and tteokbokki, and the company credits it with changing the shape of the industry. The Yeongdo main store pairs that counter with an experience hall and history museum. Visitors book sessions there to make eomuk themselves. Product ranges run from square sheets and sticks to rolled pieces, with gift sets such as the 1953 set named for the founding year. Samjin has since opened branches in Lotte department stores in Seoul and Busan and at Yongsan and Busan stations. Abroad it began with a Singapore opening in 2017 and has reached Jakarta and Hanoi and Lidcombe in Australia.
Busan pottery studio offering one-day classes, ongoing courses and group instruction in handmade ceramics, with bookings taken through Naver Place. Its Instagram documents finished work alongside a summer children's pottery program.
Best for Handmade ceramic work from a Busan pottery studio
A small independent bookstore and slow cultural stop overlooking Busan scenery. The official tourism guide lists its operating hours and official Instagram.
Best for A slow cultural stop with bookshop browsing overlooking Busan scenery
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