South Korea's Largest Costco Was Once One Of The Country's Most Infamous Prisons

What if I told you that South Korea's biggest Costco sits on the grounds of one of the country's most notorious prisons? The Gocheok-dong location in Seoul, now a glowing warehouse of bulk snacks and Kirkland-brand everything, stands where Yeongdeungpo Prison once operated from 1949 until the early 1990s. The site that once housed political prisoners and violent offenders now doles out rotisserie chickens and family-sized bags of frozen dumplings. Imagine pushing a cart through a place that used to have guard towers. It's a little surreal.

The transformation is just one chapter in Costco's global takeover. After opening in Canada in 1985, the company quickly expanded to Mexico, the United Kingdom, and by 1994, South Korea. The Gocheok-dong branch debuted in 2022 as part of a massive mixed-use redevelopment of the old prison grounds. It's now the biggest Costco in South Korea, though still not quite as enormous as the record-setting 235,000-square foot location in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Gocheok-dong store also undoubtedly shares many of the quirks of shopping at Costco abroad, like differences in accepted payment methods and membership rules, while also offering perks you won't find stateside. For example, Korean Costcos hand out alcohol samples and stock things like soju, seaweed beef soup, and bulgogi pizza, a food court item we desperately wish was available in America. (Take that, Utah.)

While the Gocheok-dong Costco doesn't acknowledge its carceral past, the transformation from Yeongdeungpo Prison into a retail giant says a lot about how South Korea reshapes its urban environment. When the prison was decommissioned in the early 1990s, its grounds were eventually folded into a sprawling mixed-use complex that now includes residential towers, shops, and the country's largest Costco.

This isn't unusual for Seoul, where land scarcity and development often turn historically charged sites into commercial hubs. Here, a symbol of state control became a suburban shopping destination, with no plaques or preserved structures, just aisles of snacks and a bustling food court. Still, it's not the only warehouse in the Costco universe with a murky backstory. Costco's worst-kept secrets include everything from surveillance lawsuits to questionable labor practices, reminding us that even a store famous for $1.50 hot dogs has its shadows. The Gocheok-dong branch might look like just another big box outpost, but its foundations tell a different story.