Hwang Jae-gyun opens up about failed cafe ventures in Seongsu-dong

Former baseball player Hwang Jae-gyun has candidly revealed his experience of repeatedly closing cafe businesses he attempted in Seongsu-dong. He confessed that his first bagel cafe ceased operations after only five months, and his second cafe, which launched with a changed menu, also went out of business after just three months.

On the 11th, in a video titled 'How Did Hwang Jae-gyun Become a Fashion People,' uploaded to his YouTube channel 'Illu Hwang,' Hwang visited Seongsu-dong to talk about fashion and go shopping. While the content was intended to lightly showcase the daily life and fashion of a retired baseball player, unexpected stories of business failure were revealed during the conversation.

Introducing himself as a "fashion people," Hwang showed enthusiasm for finding a 'dandy man' style suitable for this fall. After finishing his shopping, while sitting on a street in Seongsu-dong eating ice cream, he brought up his experience running cafes while discussing his connection to the area.

He stated, "I opened a bagel cafe in Seongsu-dong three years ago." However, the result was different from his expectations. Hwang said, "It failed in five months, so I changed it to a salad cafe, but that failed in three months."

The production crew noted after hearing his explanation, "Even if you combine the operating periods of the two cafes, it doesn't even add up to one year." Looking strictly at the actual operating periods, the first business did not last even half a year, and the second attempt after changing the business type did not even last a single quarter.

However, Hwang did not disclose specific figures such as revenue, rent, or labor costs to explain why the two businesses failed. Therefore, rather than concluding the cause of the closures based on specific factors, it is appropriate to focus on the result he himself revealed: the 'short operating periods.'

In recent years, Seongsu-dong has grown into one of Seoul's representative commercial districts as cafes, fashion, design, and content brands have clustered there. In particular, it is an area that intensely reflects the nature of the food and beverage industry, which is sensitive to trends and changes in commercial districts, as small-scale stores emphasizing unique spaces and brand experiences rapidly appear and disappear.

While a cafe may appear to be a business with relatively low barriers to entry on the surface, in reality, a profit structure is only established when location, rent, raw material costs, labor costs, average transaction value, turnover rate, and revisit rate all align. While a celebrity's name or recognition can help attract initial customers, it does not automatically guarantee long-term operation.

This is also why Hwang Jae-gyun's case is interesting. While he accumulated achievements on the field during his long career as a professional baseball player, he had to face a completely different kind of variable in business. It is a case that shows that the experience of success as an athlete and the formula for success in self-employment are not the same.

Hwang has been rapidly expanding his field of activity since his recent retirement. Having stepped down from active play at the end of the 2025 season, he announced a new start as a broadcaster by signing an exclusive contract with SM C&C this year, and opened his personal YouTube channel 'Illu Hwang' last August. As he remarked, "Since I retired, I have more work to do," he is creating touchpoints with the public in new ways even after his playing days.

In particular, 'Illu Hwang' is becoming a window that shows the change in Hwang's identity after retirement. Moving away from the firm professional frame of baseball games and player life, he is in the process of expanding his field of activity from 'player Hwang Jae-gyun' to 'broadcaster Hwang Jae-gyun' by creating content about fashion, daily life, and even variety show situations.

The failure of the cafe business revealed in this video can also be viewed in the context of such changes. During his athlete days, there existed relatively clear evaluation criteria such as performance, but in business and content, success or failure is determined by public taste, market trends, and continuous self-management.

Hwang has also been a topic of conversation in the past regarding his spending scale and lifestyle. He revealed that his monthly electricity bill at his single-person residence once reached 1.5 million won, explaining that it was because he used a refrigerator he prepared for ice baths after exercising, and he even confessed that he eventually unplugged it due to the burden of electricity costs.

This anecdote shows a recurring character in Hwang's post-retirement content. Rather than hiding the significant economic abundance and extraordinary spending experiences from his professional athlete days, he discloses them himself, turning these stories into entertaining content by bickering with the production crew.

Hwang, who married actress Jiyeon in December 2022, went through a divorce in 2024, marking a period of significant personal change. Following his retirement from professional baseball last year, he is now increasingly engaging with the public through broadcasting and YouTube rather than the baseball field.

In this context, the cafe failure reveals a different side of Hwang that cannot be explained solely by his glamorous history as a successful sports star. Rather than hiding his failed business, his decision to reveal specific details like "five months" and "three months" aligns with his approach to turning his post-retirement life into engaging content.

Ultimately, while the two cafes in Seongsu-dong did not become successful brands, they remain a part of his history as he navigated the challenges of a new industry. His next challenge lies not in the cafe business, but in broadcasting and YouTube. Attention is now focused on how Hwang, who has experienced countless battles on the baseball field, will rebuild his name in this entirely different competitive environment.