Sanrio Is Trending In Seoul: The Sanrio Pop-ups To Visit Now!

If you’re a fan of the company Sanrio and their many cute characters, then you’re in for a treat in Seoul right now. From the Sanrio Lover’s Club Café to the Cinnamoroll Cafe, there are pop-ups and more just for the Sanrio lovers out there. Though Sanrio is all about the most kawaii (cute) characters of Japanese pop culture, this trend is not just for children. People in the 20s are jumping on it too.

It seems that nostalgia is trending in Korea and anything that is a couple decades old or older is coming back in with a fun and cute vengeance. Are you ready for the revival? Or maybe it’s just an opportunity to get in with the new youngest generation. Whatever it is, it’s working.

Are you ready to get into some Sanrio fun in Seoul?

• What is Sanrio?
• What to do at the Sanrio pop-ups?
• Sanrio Lover’s Club Pop-Up (산리오 러버스 클럽)
• Cinnamoroll Sweet Cafe (시나모롤 스위트카페)

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What is Sanrio?

Even if you aren’t sure who Sanrio is, you’re bound to recognize their super cute characters. Sanrio is a Japanese company that designs, licenses, and produces products focusing on their characters. Their best known character is the super cute Hello Kitty. Other well-known characters include My Melody, Keroppi, Bad Badtz-Maru, Cinnamoroll, Jewelpet, Gudetama, and Aggressive Retsuko.

Started by Shintaro Tsuji as the Yamanashi Silk Company in 1960, the company produced a line of character based merchandise for gift giving and a star was born. The company was officially established as Sanrio in 1973. Today, Sanrio is the largest greeting card manufacturer in Japan and they actually began a joint business with Walt Disney Company for their greeting cards in 2002. The company continues to expand and grow and even went digital in 2006 with a joint venture with Typhoon Games to provide online games and mobile services.

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What to do at the Sanrio pop-ups?

1. Take a bunch of photos: One of the biggest draws are the adorable and kawaii photo-ops. Be prepared with your phone out and ready to go. You’ll want to take photos of every corner and every wall.
2. Collect the photo cards: There are machines with collectible photo cards to purchase. You can choose what you want on them, but they represent the individual pop-ups so there are different designs you can collect.
3. Collect the random key-rings/figurines: Look out for the random draw specialty key-rings and figurines. Apart of the fun is getting the specialty items that are random and you don’t really know what you’re getting. Everyone gets excited to open these up.
4. Eat the cute food and drink: The cafes have some super cute food and decorated drinks to order.
5. Buy your favorite Sanrio products: Of course every good pop-up has a great souvenir shop of goods. From toothbrush holders to stickers, key rings, toys, umbrellas, plushies, and more more more, there’s plenty to buy. Will you be able to resist the cutness?

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Sanrio Lover’s Club Pop-Up (산리오 러버스 클럽)

• Address: 18 Wausan-ro 19-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul (서울 마포구 와우산로19길 18)
• Hours: Every day: 12:00pm ~ 9:00pm

When my daughter first suggested going to this one, I had to look it up myself to ensure it was something for kids. I hadn’t been in on the Sanrio trend and was just hearing about it from her. Yes the Lover’s Club is for kids… and adults that like the super cute Sanrio characters. Actually, there were more young adults here than kids when we visited.

Set up on a hill in the Hongdae area in Seoul surrounded by bars and restaurants, is this super cute café, which actually used to be the Hello Kitty Cafe, so not a far stretch for Sanrio to use it again. The garden has been strung with lights and the exterior decorated too. When you first walk up the steps, you may notice that people have lined up outside of the door.

You can enter the first floor without a reservation freely so you can enter without waiting in line. The line is for the people that have reserved for upstairs. They open those reservations on the hour so people line up about 10-15 minutes before their time slot so they can get upstairs and get their ideal seat.

The first floor of the café features photo-op spots to the left, the café to purchase drinks and food, and a shop which is bustling. There is also a second floor of photo-ops but, remember, a reservation is required to sit there… or even go up to see it. The first time we visited, we didn’t have a reservation so we just visited the first floor. Yes, we did indeed go back with a reservation later.

We actually arrived just a few minutes after everyone in our time slot rushed upstairs to get their seats. What’s funny is that then, they put their bags down where they want to sit and rush back down to the cafe to wait in line to get drinks and food. SO, we actually ended up with the whole upstairs space on our own to get pics first and then went downstairs bypassing all of the waiting and still getting all of the photos.

Maybe you should try for that strategy because once everyone is upstairs, it’s a bit difficult to get all of the photo-ops.

Sanrio goods are easy to find in Korea with products featured here at the pop-up shops and cafes but also in stationary stores like ArtBox.

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Cinnamoroll Sweet Cafe (시나모롤 스위트카페)

• Address: Hongdae AK&, 188 Yanghwa-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul (서울 마포구 양화로 188 홍대 AK&)
• Hours: Every day: 11:00am ~ 10:00pm

While there is no pre-reservation required to enter this particular café, you might want to. There is a sign-in spot when you go toward the entrance where you can put your phone number in. When we visited, we had 13 teams in front of us and had to wait for an hour.

The great thing about the system is that you can wander around and it’ll message you when it’s your time to enter, so go see some other things. But it means this stop might not be too fast. Go here first and register your number and then go wander around the mall a bit. There’s a K-pop shop just next to this café too if you want to peruse some goods there for awhile.

Again, I didn’t know quite what to expect and my daughter was leading this adventure. I was hoping for cinnamon rolls on the menu but alas there were none. A missed marketing opportunity if you ask me. This café is smaller than the Sanrio Lover’s Club but no less cute.

Devoted to Sanrio’s character Cinnamoroll specifically, you need to get up and take pictures at the various cute photo-op spots. The drinks and food are specific to this one as well and different from what is offered at Sanrio Lover’s Club. They were surprisingly good though. I’ve often found that drinks and food at pop-ups is all about being cute and not so much about the taste, but these were quite nice.

One of the most popular items to purchase in the shop, FYI, is the 20th anniversary Cinnamoroll key-ring. It’s random though! You have to buy them blind and then open the package to see which one you got. If Cinnamoroll is your favorite Sanrio character, much like it is my daughter’s, then you’ll definitely want to visit this adorable café.

Cinnamoroll is all over right now. We happened to notice that there are Cinnamoroll products in the ArtBox shops around Seoul too. Don’t be left out of the trend:

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The Sanrio cafes in Seoul, Korea are free to enter and have a lot of fun super kawaii photo-ops. Want to get in on the trend? Visit these fun spots in the Hongdae area. You could do both in one day!

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