Gilpost · Seongbuk-gu, Jeongneung-dong
Halmeoni Darakbang
할머니다락방 Halmeoni Darakbang means grandmother's attic; because both words are everyday Korean, a search on the name alone pulls in a clothes shop, the sleeping loft of a hanok guesthouse and a cafe of a similar name in another district — this one is the second-floor cafe across from the main gate of Seokyeong University, in Jeongneung-dong.
Other · Seongbuk-gu, Jeongneung-dong
Data as of · Published ·
Halmeoni Darakbang — grandmother's attic — is a cafe on the second floor of a building on Seogyeong-ro, across from the main gate of Seokyeong University; regulars shorten the name to Halda. It is furnished to the name, with vintage bric-a-brac, a dressed mannequin and wood-toned furniture, and the coffee is pulled from beans roasted in a corner of the room the shop calls its bean shop. The fruit syrups are made in-house too. The list leans away from plain coffee and towards syrup drinks and oddly named lattes; to eat there is kaya toast, a croffle and cake. Ten in the morning until ten at night. The posts we read run from November 2024 to September 2026.
The basics
| Address | 서울특별시 성북구 서경로 81, 2층 (정릉동) 81 Seogyeong-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul |
|---|---|
| Typical spend | ₩4,500 – ₩5,000 |
| Floor area | 122 m² |
| Status | In business |
1 posts say it is walkable from the station.
When it opens
Of 3 posts: 2 wrote Daily 10:00–22:00.
| Open | Daily | 10:00–22:00 2 of 3 posts last seen 2025-07 |
|---|
Counted from what bloggers wrote in their posts; we did not confirm it with the restaurant. Where the values differ, it may be a change over time rather than a disagreement, so we show when each one was written.
What sets it apart
- It is upstairs, and people walk past it. Three posts place it on the second floor, and two of them go out of their way to warn you: don't look for it at street level, look for the way in. One says the old-fashioned sign downstairs is the marker, and the stairs go up from there. Another, arriving late in the evening, was glad to find it brightly lit.
- There are low tables you sit at on the floor. Three posts mention them: one counts a two-seat and a four-seat low table plus a separate table that takes up to seven, and two simply find the floor seating homely. Another counts about three seats set aside for people on their own. They are not always free — one writer went for a low table, found it taken and sat elsewhere.
- Kind, and slow. Two writers call the owner kind; one of them, in the same breath, says the drinks are always late — "kind, but I wonder about the speed of the hands" — and she has been more than once. Leave yourself time, she advises. Only that one post raises it; the others say nothing about waiting either way.
- You order at a kiosk, by one account. Two writers say the list is long enough to slow you down; one of them solved it by taking the set.
- People come here to study and people come here to sit quietly, and both are in the posts. Two call the room quiet; two describe working there — one through a licensing course, one reading a book. But one regular of four years in the neighbourhood says it is not really a studying cafe: you can, but it isn't ideal. No post says anything about power sockets.
- Two writers picked a window seat — one for the sense of openness, with the curtain moving in the draught, one simply for sitting a while. Another says each seat has been arranged to be photographed.
- A tree goes up for Christmas — a late-December 2025 post found the room dressed for it. Only one writer records it, so we do not know whether it happens every year.
What 8 bloggers said
We read all 8 in full. The most common claims are “Returning customer” (4) and “Would return” (2).
What they liked
What they struggled with
Things you can check on site
| Second floor | 3 of 8 posts |
|---|---|
| Floor seating | 3 of 8 posts |
| Large windows | 2 of 8 posts |
| Reachable by transit | 1 of 8 posts |
| Seasonal decorations | 1 of 8 posts |
| Self-order screen | 1 of 8 posts |
These are raw counts, not percentages. Someone who did not mention something is not someone who disagreed.
What people order
The most ordered dish is kaya toseuteu (카야토스트) — 3 of 8 posts.
The prices here are what bloggers wrote down in their posts, and they may have changed since. Check Naver Place for the current menu and prices. This list is not a menu board — it counts what bloggers actually ordered and ate. Check on Naver Place
Who came, and with whom
| Date | 2 of 8 posts |
|---|---|
| With a friend | 2 of 8 posts |
Getting there
Naver Map has a full English mode — Settings → Language → English. In Korea it gives better walking and transit directions than Google Maps.
Getting inside
| Second floor | 3 of 8 posts |
|---|
No post says whether a wheelchair or a pushchair can get up there. Three place the cafe on the second floor and one describes climbing the stairs, but nobody looked for a lift, a step at the door or a ramp. That is not a no; it means nobody wrote it down. Not even the platform's facilities list has been copied out here, so there is no second-hand wording either. If stairs are a problem, ring the shop before you go.
No one mentioned: In a basement · Lift to the floor · Ramp at the door · Step at the entrance · Step-free access · Toilet inside · Accessible toilet · Separate restrooms. That is not the same as there being none — it means we could not confirm it. Worth calling ahead, and do tell us: we will put it here.
How to read these posts
- Posts saying they paid themselves2 of 8 posts
- Posts saying nothing either way6 of 8 posts
When the posts appeared
Month by month
| Month | Posts |
|---|---|
| 2024-11 | 1 |
| 2025-06 | 1 |
| 2025-07 | 1 |
| 2025-10 | 1 |
| 2025-12 | 1 |
| 2026-01 | 1 |
| 2026-06 | 1 |
| 2026-09 | 1 |
What we do not know
- The counts on this page come from nine posts, not thirteen. Of the thirteen gathered by name, four turned out to be about other places that merely share the word darakbang, attic: a clothes shop of that name a few streets away, two about a hanok guesthouse where the attic is a room guests sleep in, and one about a cafe of a similar name across the river in Seongdong-gu. None of the four contains this shop's street address, and every check-in in them points somewhere else. A shop named out of ordinary words collects strangers like this, and left in, their stories would have been counted as this one's.
- Not one of the nine posts mentions the lavatory — whether it is inside the cafe or out in the building, whether it is shared between men and women. Nobody wrote it down. A cafe on an upper floor may well send you to the building's own, but that is our guess and not something we could check.
- No post gives a telephone number, and none mentions booking. The number appears nowhere in the nine, so we cannot print it — and a phone call is the one way to settle the things we do not know here, the lavatory, the step, the parking. Whether the shop takes reservations at all, nobody says. No one reports trouble getting a table: one writer found it busy on a weekend, another finds it empty whenever she goes.
- No post declares a sponsorship, and two state plainly that they paid. But only three of the nine give any price, and no two writers price the same drink, so we cannot tell you whether anything has gone up or down. One post from June 2026 repeats search phrases — Seongbuk-gu cafe recommendation, Seongbuk-gu mood cafe — six times over and carries no prices and nothing about the room; we kept it because two drinks were ordered and drunk, but all we counted from it was quiet, a window seat, and wanting to return.
- Nine people, one post each — no blogger wrote twice. Four of the nine are not about this shop alone but are day- or month-long diaries and neighbourhood lists, and from those we read and counted only the stretch the check-in belongs to, which is why they yield almost no prices and little about the room. One, from September 2026, was written by someone who lived nearby for four years and went often; she says she worries the place will close for want of customers, noting that the yoghurt shop across the way already has. We have not been able to check that.
Sources (8)
Every number above was counted from the posts below.
- 졸업 전에 푸는 서경대 근처 맛집·카페 찐리스트 2026-09-01 · 미지근한 기록 · via Daum
- 성북구 카페 추천, 할머니 다락방에서 즐긴 딸기라떼와 청귤주스 후.... 2026-06-17 · 엄마가 알려주는 정보 마을
- 정릉/할머니 다락방 2026-01-12 · 영차랑 나랑 아빠랑 · via Daum
- 이십춘기인데 뭐 어쩔건데 내년에 스물여섯 뭐 어쩔건데 2026 다 댐벼 2025-12-29 · 뒤죽박죽 얼렁뚱땅 빙글뱅글 돌아가는 인생의 맛 · via Daum
- 저번 주 일기 2025-10-28 · everlasting · via Daum
- 서경대 근처 빈티지하고 귀여운 컨셉의 카페 ‘할머니다락방‘ 2025-07-16 · 요리죠리 탐방일기 · via Daum
- 할머니다락방_감성과 맛을 동시에! 요긴 무조건 저장! 2025-06-11 · 혀니의 소소한 일상 · via Daum
- 성북구 서경대 카페 추천 할머니다락방 내돈내산 후기 2024-11-19 · :D
Of 266 candidate posts we opened 120 and kept 8 as evidence. We have not seen them all yet; another pass would add more.