Why there is a queue outside the rice cake shop

Right now

1. 1Go to the rice cake shop in the morning. The batch made at dawn runs out around lunchtime, and anything trendy runs out before that.
2. 2Tteok you will not eat today goes in the freezer, not the fridge. Tteok left in the fridge is rock hard by the next morning.
3. 3If you are going for pizza seolgi, check that shop's social media post for the day first. Whether it is reservation only, whether there is a limit per person, and whether the main shop is closed for a pop-up are all in there.

What to have ready

• An hour in the morning: A rice cake shop is the opposite of a bakery. Morning is peak time, and a trending tteok has a queue before the door opens.
• Freezer space: Tteok is eaten today or frozen. There is no in between.
• A steamer or a microwave: Frozen tteok comes back if you steam it or sprinkle a little water before heating. Heated dry, it only gets harder.
• A plate to return: If a neighbour or a colleague gives you tteok, wash the plate and return it. Tteok handed over on a plate is a greeting, not a gift that expects one back.

Phrases you can copy and paste

Step by step

1. 1
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   Tteok is a cousin of rice, not of bread

   Tteok is made by grinding rice into flour or soaking it like cooking rice, then steaming, pounding or shaping it. There is no wheat flour, no yeast and no oven. That is why it is denser than bread, and more than half of it is not sweet. By method there are four families. Steamed in a siru and served as is: baekseolgi and sirutteok. Steamed and then pounded and stretched: injeolmi, garaetteok and jeolpyeon. Shaped by hand: songpyeon and gyeongdan. Fried in oil: hwajeon and bukkumi. Baekseolgi is plain non-glutinous rice flour steamed in a siru with nothing added, and it used to be called huinmuri, white mass. The seolgi in pizza seolgi is this. The rice itself comes in two kinds. Tteok made from glutinous rice stretches, sticks and tends to stay soft after cooling. Tteok made from non-glutinous rice has more bite and hardens quickly. If you are looking for tteok with Japanese mochi in mind, only the chapssaltteok family comes close to that feeling. Seolgi and garaetteok are a different food. Because no wheat is used, tteok itself is a safe choice for anyone avoiding gluten, but the fusion tteok coming out now needs a separate look at what went into the toppings and creams.

2. 2
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   Not everything ending in tteok is a rice cake

   Start with the names you meet most often on the shop shelf. Injeolmi is pounded glutinous rice cut into squares and rolled in roasted soybean powder. Garaetteok is pounded non-glutinous rice pulled into long cylinders; sliced thin it goes into tteokguk soup, cut to finger thickness it becomes tteokbokki. Jeolpyeon is garaetteok pressed with a pattern, and it turns green when mugwort is added. Chapssaltteok is a glutinous rice dough wrapped around sweet red bean paste and shaped into a ball, and it is the one you see most often in the convenience store chiller. Kkultteok is a bite-sized piece with sugar syrup inside that runs out when you bite. Baramtteok is a half-moon with air inside that collapses when you chew. Sirutteok is layers of rice flour and red bean powder steamed together. Yaksik is glutinous rice steamed with jujubes, chestnuts and honey, closer to a sweet rice dish than to a cake. One thing needs filtering here. A name ending in tteok does not always mean rice cake. Bindaetteok is a pancake of ground mung beans, hotteok is a wheat dough pressed and griddled, and tteokgalbi is minced meat. Tteokbokki uses garaetteok, but it is snack bar food and rice cake shops do not sell it.

3. 3
   

   Tteok is eaten the day you buy it

   The biggest difference between tteok and bread is that tteok rarely lasts a day. Rice starch sets hard again as it cools, and it sets fastest at fridge temperature. Tteok that was soft in the morning, put in the fridge in the evening, will not take a knife the next morning. So rice cake shops make it at dawn and sell it within the day, and customers eat it the same day. Yeongdodari Tteokbang in Namhang Market on Yeongdo, Busan, opens at 7 in the morning. When Busan Ilbo reported on it in May 2026, the weekday batch was gone between noon and 1 pm and the weekend batch between 10 and 11 am. Even at a shop that is not trending, arriving in the afternoon to find the display half empty is normal. There is one way to save what is left. Wrap it in single portions before it hardens and put it in the freezer. To eat it, steam it, or sprinkle a little water and microwave it briefly. Microwaved dry for too long, only the outside goes hard. Packaged tteok from convenience stores and supermarkets is made to last a few days, so it steps slightly outside this rule, but once the bag is open it is the same tteok.

4. 4
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   Prices go up in the order shop, market, convenience store, department store

   The cheapest place is the neighbourhood rice cake shop. The sign says tteokjip, tteokbang or bangatgan, and it is made and sold on the spot. Tteok comes packed a few pieces to a tray, and sirutteok or baekseolgi is cut from a whole slab. Some traditional markets have their rice cake shops gathered in one alley, which makes comparing kinds easy. Supermarkets have a separate packaged tteok section, and convenience stores sell chapssaltteok, kkultteok and injeolmi from the chiller. In 2026 convenience store tteok moved to the front of the trend. According to a CU press release, the chain's tteok dessert sales grew 104.4% in 2023, 25.1% in 2024 and 62.3% in 2025, and were up 69.3% on the previous year in January and February 2026. On 25 March the chain put a salted butter tteok on sale nationwide at 2,200 won. On 3 September GS25 launched, as an exclusive, the yogurt chapssaltteok from Hanjeongseon, a brand that had been drawing queues at department store food halls, at 3,900 won. In a trial sale on 28 August at two locations, Yeoksam-dong and Incheon Airport Terminal 2, 400 pieces sold out in 15 minutes. Department store food halls and pop-ups are the most expensive and the longest wait. The pop-up that Changeok Tteokjip from Buk-gu, Gwangju ran at The Hyundai Seoul for a week from 14 August drew more than 10,000 people. The queue formed from 6:30 am and the longest waits went past five hours, the Korea Economic Daily reported. Touring famous rice cake shops like this is now called tteokji sullye, a rice cake pilgrimage. The word comes from ppangji sullye, the bakery pilgrimage that came first. There is also a separate place where tteok is eaten as dessert. Cafes selling injeolmi bingsu and injeolmi toast are the typical case, and those are eaten for the soybean powder more than for the tteok.

5. 5

   Pizza seolgi started at a neighbourhood rice cake shop in Busan

   Pizza seolgi is baekseolgi spread with tomato sauce, topped with cheese and pepperoni, and steamed. On social media more people call it pizza tteok. Baekseolgi takes the place of a wheat dough, so a bite tastes of pizza toppings while the base is rice cake. It began at Yeongdodari Tteokbang inside Namhang Market on Yeongdo, Busan. A couple opened the neighbourhood shop in 1999 and their son has been working alongside them for a few years. The shop's pizza seolgi comes in three kinds: pepperoni, potato and bulgogi. The pepperoni one also carries bulgogi, sweetcorn and peppers, and the potato one carries wedge potatoes and bacon. When Busan Ilbo visited in May the price was in the 1,500 won range per piece. In the same article the owner said a boom like this was a first in 30 years. In the order of trends, pizza seolgi is the fourth. The Dubai chewy cookie that reached convenience stores in autumn 2024 was first, the pumpkin injeolmi from Changeok Tteokjip in Gwangju came second early this year, and the butter tteok that four convenience store chains launched at once in March was third. Pizza seolgi appeared in Busan newspapers from May and spread nationwide at the end of August. Google Trends search interest, as quoted by Money Today, went from 9 on 20 August to 63 on 25 August and 98 on 1 September. Sisa Journal e wrote that the cycle of these trends is shortening to about 15 days. Video is what spread it. The moment the cheese stretches as the tteok is torn in half went around as short clips, and that moment built the weekday morning queues.

6. 6

   How you get pizza seolgi depends on the shop

   Because rice cake shops all over the country make their own pizza seolgi, not just the original, the way to buy it differs from shop to shop. On 31 August, the day Sisa Journal e reported from a rice cake shop in Jungnang-gu, Seoul, it was raining. The queue of 30 groups at 10 am had grown to 50 by 10:30, when sales began. The limit was five per person and the day's stock was gone within an hour. It is a shop where reviews on social media say it took three visits to buy one. In the list The Trip Pick compiled in May, Bongseon Tteok in Nam-gu, Gwangju takes reservations until 4 pm the day before, Siruae in Daejeon sells mainly by reservation and takeaway, and Hanjudang in Jinju ships nationwide by courier. The original shop in Busan takes courier orders too. As of the article on 15 August, though, the main shop was temporarily closed because of a pop-up at Lotte Department Store Jamsil. So before you go, read that shop's post for the day on social media. Whether it is reservation only, whether it is same-day walk-in, how many per person, and whether the main shop is closed for a pop-up are written there. Pizza seolgi sent by courier arrives frozen. Heated in a microwave or an air fryer, the cheese stretches again. Ahead of Chuseok it gets harder to find. Money Today reported that a well-known rice cake shop in Gwangmyeong announced it would take no reservation orders until after the holiday. One word on convenience stores in advance. As of 8 September, when this guide was written, I found no announcement of a convenience store launching pizza seolgi as a regular product. Butter tteok reached convenience stores a month after it became a talking point, so if you hate queues, waiting a few weeks is one option.

7. 7
   

   Tteok is bought, but it is also received

   In Korea tteok is something you buy to eat and something people give each other. When you move in, you hand tteok to the neighbours, and when you open a shop, you hand it to the neighbouring shops. When a baby reaches 100 days and the first birthday, baekseolgi and susupattteok are handed round. Baekseolgi stands for cleanliness and sanctity, and the red susupattteok for keeping bad luck away. The 100th day rice cake was shared with many households because of the saying that a hundred people had to eat it for the baby to live long. A household that received it moved the tteok to its own dish and returned the original dish unwashed, with thread, money or rice in it. This is the custom recorded on Uri Yeoksa Net by the National Institute of Korean History. Today not as many households in apartment blocks hand out moving-in tteok as before, and few put thread or money in the returned dish. Two things fall to the person receiving it. Say thank you, then eat it that day or freeze it. If it came on a plate or in a dish, wash it and return it. Tteok also travels at holidays. At Chuseok, half-moon songpyeon are steamed on a bed of pine needles, and Chuseok 2026, checked against the lunar to solar conversion of the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, is Friday 25 September. At Seollal people eat tteokguk with sliced garaetteok, and they say a bowl of it adds a year to your age. Tteok arrives on exam day too. Giving chapssaltteok and yeot to someone about to sit the college entrance exam is a wish for them to pass, because the stickiness of tteok overlaps with the Korean word for sticking, which also means passing. If a colleague hands out tteok at work, it means there has been a wedding, a birth or a promotion, and a word of congratulation is all that is needed.

Watch it happen

Videos other people made, picked because they show a part of this guide that words cannot. They are not our sources: the rules and figures above come from the official pages listed at the end.

• 

  두쫀쿠 다음, 버터떡 다음 #영도다리떡방 #피자설기 #남항시장

  Channel: 영도구, Korean

  Yeongdo District filmed a short clip of Yeongdodari Tteokbang in Namhang Market, where pizza seolgi began. The real thing, toppings on top of baekseolgi, and the scene outside the shop are both in it.

  Open on YouTube

The Korean words

떡tteok, rice cake

The word for the whole family of foods made by steaming or pounding rice. A different branch from bread.

백설기baekseolgi, plain white steamed rice cake

Non-glutinous rice flour steamed with nothing added. The base of pizza seolgi.

피자설기pija seolgi, pizza-topped rice cake

Baekseolgi steamed with tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni on top. Also called pizza tteok on social media.

인절미injeolmi, soybean-powdered rice cake

Pounded glutinous rice cut into squares and rolled in roasted soybean powder.

가래떡garaetteok, long cylinder rice cake

Pounded non-glutinous rice pulled long. Sliced thin for tteokguk, cut thick for tteokbokki.

송편songpyeon, half-moon rice cake for Chuseok

Filled, shaped into half-moons and steamed on pine needles. The tteok of Chuseok.

찹쌀떡chapssaltteok, glutinous rice cake with red bean filling

A round glutinous rice cake with sweet red bean paste inside. The most common one in convenience stores.

꿀떡kkultteok, honey-filled bite rice cake

A bite-sized piece with sugar syrup inside. It runs out when you bite.

떡집tteokjip, rice cake shop

A shop that makes and sells tteok. Signs reading tteokbang or bangatgan mean the same shop.

떡지순례tteokji sullye, rice cake shop pilgrimage

Touring famous rice cake shops. From ppangji sullye, the bakery pilgrimage.

이사떡isatteok, moving-in rice cake

Tteok a household hands to the neighbours after moving in. If you receive it, wash the dish and return it.

Easy to miss

• ·Tteok put in the fridge hardens within a day, because rice starch sets fastest at fridge temperature. Tteok you will not eat today goes in the freezer.
• ·A rice cake shop sells out in the morning. An empty display in the afternoon does not mean the shop has closed down. A trending tteok has a queue before the door opens.
• ·A name ending in tteok does not make it rice cake. Bindaetteok is a mung bean pancake, hotteok is wheat bread and tteokgalbi is meat. If you are choosing tteok to avoid gluten, leave those three out.
• ·The original pizza seolgi shop has closed its main shop during a pop-up. Before travelling far, read the shop's post for the day on social media. Trending shops often have per-person limits and reservation cut-offs.
• ·Do not swallow chapssaltteok in a hurry. Because it stretches, choking accidents are common among children and older people. Cut it small and eat slowly.
• ·Return the dish the tteok came in. If you keep the plate that moving-in tteok arrived on, the neighbour loses a plate. Washing it and handing it back is enough.

You can skip this if

• If you are looking for tteokbokki, this is not the guide. Tteokbokki uses garaetteok, but it is snack bar food and rice cake shops do not sell it.
• If you expect the chewiness of Japanese mochi, only the chapssaltteok family comes close. Seolgi, garaetteok and jeolpyeon are non-glutinous rice with a different bite.
• If you want a gift that keeps for a while, fresh tteok is the wrong choice. If it will not be eaten that day, look at packaged tteok from supermarkets and convenience stores, or frozen courier orders.

Where this comes from

• After the Dubai chewy cookie, pizza seolgi? Department stores and convenience stores turn to tteok (Money Today, 5 September 2026)
• "It took three visits to buy one": 50 groups queue for pizza tteok on a weekday morning (Sisa Journal e, on-site report, 31 August 2026)
• After the Dubai chewy cookie comes this, the pizza seolgi open run (Sisa Journal e, 2 September 2026)
• Dawn queues for rice cake, market tteok shops are booming (Busan Ilbo, 19 May 2026)
• Pizza seolgi shops across the country, some ship by courier (The Trip Pick, 31 May 2026)
• Three seolgi shops with pizza, melon and matcha toppings (syndicated on Daum News, 15 August 2026)
• The chapssaltteok people queued for at department stores reaches convenience stores (Korea Economic Daily, 3 September 2026)
• Crowds outside the department store from dawn, the second Dubai chewy cookie (Korea Economic Daily, 29 August 2026)
• CU launches the global trend dessert butter tteok, first in the industry (BGF Retail press release, 16 March 2026)
• Setting the 100th day table and sharing 100th day rice cake (National Institute of Korean History, Uri Yeoksa Net)
• Baekseolgi (Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, Academy of Korean Studies)
• Lunar to solar calendar conversion (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute)