A cozy pojangmacha tent selling coffee, milk, toast, ddeokbokki, and usual tent fare

포장마차 (poh-jahng-mah-cha)

As Koreans are almost always out and on the go from dawn until the wee hours of the following morning, business and industry has built itself around the hustle-bustle world of Korea. One of the traditional and contemporary businesses that one can always find smack dab in the middle of all the flurry of activity and human traffic, are the reliable pojangmachas. These are street carts/kiosks that are set up to serve quick meals and snacks to passerbys. Sometimes you'll see busy Koreans duck under the tent of a cart to eat a stick of steaming odeng or some spicy ddeokbokki. In other pojangmachas, you might see a larger tent with chairs and tables where patrons take time out to drink some soju and various anju.

Although they are usually considered outdoor food and/or soju tents, you can occasionally see advertisements for indoor sojubangs to promote themselves as a pojangmacha, despite not fitting the traditional mold. The term originally referred to covered wagons that sold soju in the country.

Pojangmachas exist in the countryside as well, and often the only interesting place to spend a few hours at night on an island like Baengnyeong-do is in one of the seaside pojangmachas located right along the beach. These are much larger than many of the ones in the big cities and resemble restaurants but for the fact that they are easily set up and taken down at the end of the summer.