A beverage that debuted as a single-weekend New York pop-up is now available at every participating TOUS les JOURS location in the country. The Korean bakery café chain, owned by CJ Foodville and operating more than 200 U.S. sites, launched the Gochujang Caramel Latte on October 1 in partnership with Oatly, running the limited-time offer through November 30. The move is a textbook example of how operators can test culturally specific flavors in a controlled pop-up environment before committing to a national rollout — and it's worth watching for any foodservice brand managing a seasonal beverage calendar.
From Pop-Up to Nationwide
The drink's origin matters as a procurement and menu-development signal. Oatly originally created the Gochujang Latte with Korean-American artist Yaeji for Café Yaeji, a New York pop-up built around Korean café culture. TOUS les JOURS adapted that base concept into a caramel-forward build: espresso, Oatly Barista Edition oatmilk, gochujang caramel syrup, vanilla oat cold foam, and Lotus Biscoff cookie crumbles, served hot or iced. The reformulation for a multi-unit environment required translating an artisan, event-driven recipe into a replicable spec across dozens of markets — precisely the challenge beverage directors and bar program consultants face when scaling specialty drinks. For operators considering similar moves, the Oatly Barista Edition is already positioned for high-volume café use, which reduces friction in cross-brand builds like this one.
What This Signals for Fall Menus
Gochujang as a beverage ingredient is not a novelty confined to Korean-concept restaurants. Its appearance on a nationally distributed café menu, paired with a mainstream plant-based dairy brand, marks a meaningful step toward broader consumer normalization. For menu developers and beverage trend watchers, the Gochujang Caramel Latte sits at the intersection of two durable movements: Korean flavor adoption in American foodservice and the continued premiumization of oatmilk as a barista-tier ingredient rather than a simple dairy swap. Operators in adjacent segments — specialty coffee, fast-casual, hotel F&B — should note that this flavor profile is now being tested at scale, which typically precedes broader category adoption within 12 to 18 months.
The marketing architecture layered onto the launch is also instructive. Select locations in Cerritos, Brea, La Habra, Union Street, and Madison Square Park are offering an exclusive co-branded keychain with purchase, creating a location-specific incentive that drives foot traffic without discounting the beverage. A companion Instagram sweepstakes — #SipIfYouDare, running October 1 through November 15 — offers five $100 gift cards, providing a low-cost mechanism to generate user content and extend organic reach. For operators building brand launch frameworks around limited-time offerings, the combination of physical collectible plus social activation is a repeatable playbook worth benchmarking. TOUS les JOURS has also been building its cultural-marketing infrastructure throughout 2026, having served as the Official Bakery Café Sponsor of BTS THE CITY ARIRANG NEW YORK and participating in KCON LA 2026 — context that makes this Oatly collaboration feel less like a one-off product drop and more like a sustained effort to own the Korean-culture-meets-everyday-café positioning in the U.S. market.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
