[Aju News DB]
SM Entertainment, buoyed by the success of its K-pop business, has ventured into deluxe music restaurant services, offering a space for dining and dance parties on the floor equipped with a high-quality audio and video system as well as an oxygen generator.
SM's five-story restaurant called SMT Seoul was launched on Thursday near the company's head office in one of South Korea's most affluent areas in southern Seoul, which is better known as "Gangnam (south of river)" after rapper Psy's "Gangnam Style" went viral.
Each floor of the restaurant serves different styles of foods like tapas, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. Visitors can enjoy SM artist's videos, music and holograms at night from Thursday.
At the request of customers, the restaurant will turn one of its floors into a dance party lounge equipped with a high quality audio system, an oxygen generator and sound-absorbing walls.
SM has grown into South Korea's largest showbiz group, driven by the global boom of the Korean pop culture wave "Hallyu". SMT Seoul is part of the group's efforts to create K-pop tourist attractions around its office.
The company opened a food and beverage house in 2008 but shut it down three years later. SM, however, is confident about its new restaurant business and plans to open more abroad probably in Japan and the United States.
Charles Lim
아주경제 임장원 기자 = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
