The South Korean coffee shop Caffebene arrives in Missouri in October.
The fast-casual franchise is currently under construction and will rise in Springfield's Farmer's Park, said Alice Oh, owner of the franchise. The owner first tried Caffebene in Dallas and found it amazing. The Springfield-grown businesswoman wanted to bring the coffee shop to Farmer's Park after noticing that it lacks a cafe.
According to Oh, the coffee shop is a fusion of European and Asian cafes. "When I describe it to people, I say it's like a Panera and Starbucks combined," said Oh.
Caffebene uses coffee beans from Brazil, Bolivia, Papua and New Guinea. It's famous for the Belgian waffle served with various toppings such as fruits, desserts, ice cream, gelato and salad. The website said the menu offers a variety of food influenced by different cultures. One of it's latest offering is the healthy misugaru which "consists of black sesame seeds, black bean, black and brown rice and barley." It can be served hot or cold.
"Bene" means good in Italian, so the name of the cafe literally means "good coffee." It combines the open-air atmosphere of most European cafes and combines it with Korean's Sarangbang, a room that's a regular part of a traditional Korean house.
First opened in 2008 in South Korea, Caffebene has expanded to fourteen countries and has opened a total of 1,860 stores. CEO Kim Sun-Kwon aims to open 10,000 stores by 2025. Struggling to compete with already established coffee retailer such as Starbucks, the CEO partnered with TV stations to shoot television series in the cafes, boosting the growth in numbers of young adult customers.
Caffebene launched its first international store at Times Square York in Manhattan in February 2012 and opened the second global store in Beijing, China a month after. There are two dozen stores opened in the U.S., and 10 of that are in New York. Nine more stores are about to be opened, including the one in Missouri.
