If you came here expecting a lively outdoor beer alley, you're a few years too late. Fact Outdoor seating permits for this stretch were cancelled in November 2022. The city is still here. The beer and dried pollak are still here. The outdoor atmosphere that made this place famous is not.
What this place actually was
Fact In 2015, Seoul designated this alley as a "Future Heritage" site — recognition that decades of office workers unwinding here had built something worth protecting. In 2017, the district office formally permitted 17 pubs to use the street for outdoor seating. That permission is now gone. Citing safety concerns tied to nearby redevelopment, the district office cancelled outdoor permits in November 2022. Car-free evening hours that used to clear the street for pedestrians were also ended, in July 2023.
The founding pub and what happened to it
Eulji OB Bear ran for 44 years and was one of the businesses credited with starting the beer-alley culture here. In 2022, after a dispute with its building owner, it suddenly closed. Fact It later emerged that most of the building's ownership had been acquired by the owner of Manseon Hoftbar, the rival chain that now dominates the same alley. By one 2024 count, roughly half of the remaining pubs carried some version of the same brand name.
So should you still come?
Yes — with adjusted expectations. Indoor seating at surviving pubs is still active most evenings. Order nogari and a draft beer: that's still the anchor. If you want to support what remains of the alley's original variety, choose a pub that isn't part of the dominant chain. And look at the construction fencing and container-based temporary shops now sitting alongside the surviving pubs — they are as much a part of this street's current character as the beer is.