If the ML going to be brewing coffee, my only requirement is that the ML has nice forearms, preferably with veins.

I dream cast imaginary dramas all the time! (Mostly with my faves.)

Since our new series is named Cast Away Diva, and this plot sounds like The Witch's Diner, I'm going to cast (my fave) Chae Jong-hyeop as our barista and (my fave) Chae Soo-bin as his love interest.

As we're well aware of how love potions are received from the community outrage in Destined With You, I want our barista to believe that she loves him because of the love potion and be racked with guilt leading him to confess, "You only think you're in love with me because you drank the love potion," then nobly let her go. Just for us and him to discover that she never drank the coffee. Happily ever after.

Chae Jong-hyeop as the barista! Choi Jin-hyuk as his sardonic, disenchanted boss/owner of the café. Won Ji-an as, well, basically her character from HeartBeat, scoffing at the idea
of magical coffee but slowly coming out of her shell as she interacts with her handsome coworker and tries to straighten out the glorious messes he makes. And we need the three beatdown grannies from Not Others - Kim Young-ok, Yang Hee-kyeong, and Lee Yong-lee - as regular customers and Greek chorus, judging everybody.

Choi Jin-Hyuk was the very first name that popped into my head!
He's the grumpy barista with a secret marshmallow heart. His love potions aren't actual love potions, but he can't stand people moping and pining at each other in his coffee shop so one day when it becomes too much, his frustration actually bleeds over into the coffee beans and unintentionally influences the pining customer to confess to the person they like. So now he has to learn to manage his emotions, but he has a huge crush on the coffee bean supplier so his emotions go out of control whenever she/he's around, and this causes shenanigans.
His employees are current flying cutie Lee Jung-ha, who's just an overgrown golden retriever puppy; Lee Shin-Young, who's a shy and earnest cutie; and Lee Min-Jae, who's a cocky cutie with absolutely no practical romance knowledge but plenty of theory. They're part of the peanut gallery with Choi Jin-Hyuk's sassy baker sister Park Eun-bin and his equally sassy brother Kim Kyung-nam, who's a talent agent.
The first couple is Han Hyo-joo and Jo In-sung, and the second is Ahn Hyo-seop and Rowoon, because I want to see a proper story for them.

Mismatched couple cameos (I see these pairings as people with different vibes):
1. Kim Soo Hyun and Park Shin Hye
2. Song Joon Ki and Gong Hyo Jin
3. Kim Hee Sun and Hyun Bin
4. Lee Joon Ki and Kim Go Eun
5. Gong Yoo and Kim Hye Soo
6. Lee min Ho and Shin Min ah
7. Park bo young and Im Si wan
8. Lee Jong Suk and Park Min Young
9. Seo In Guk and Bae Suzy
10. Jang Hyuk and Jun Ji Hyun

I would like to see Lee Soo-hyuk with his outstanding voice setting up mismatched people together in the most convincing way and joining him as the bubbly and chaotic female lead is Park Bo-young.

I instantly thought Park Seo Joon as the barista. Kim Seul Gi as the waitress who smacks sense into the luvestruck idiots. Kim Mi Kyung as the manager who is actually waiting for her first love to put him under a spell but her best friend and cancer survivor ends up falling for her instead.
and Park hyung Sik as the only customer on whom the potion doesn´t seem to work at all no matter how much coffee he drinks. Whats the deal?
Then there is an ajussi on whom potion wears off mid-date and with each new cup there is a new infatuation, resulting in him being chased along the street by every neighborhood halmeoni with umbrellas and walking sticks. Played by Ahn Gil Kang.

Putting the disappointment that was Dream behind me, i’d like the dreamy barista to be Park Seo Joon and snarky IU as his partner in business and love. They have to be a bickering chaotic mess - not too much that they scare off the clients but just enough to make everyone cheer when they end up as the OTP.

Hum... it reminds me the very bad Kdrama That Man Oh Soo.

I would prefer to forget this plot 😅

I don't know why but I instantly thought of Chae Jong-hyeop as the barista, just before reading that two other beanies mentioned him too! XD

As someone allergic to coffee I'll just hope none of my faves will be involved. And what world needs a witch barista to do BAD matchmaking? Last time I heard, humans were perfectly capable of doing that left and right on their own)))

My barista here is Park Ho-san.
His reluctant staffers, coffee interns Jun-young, Ong Seung-woo, Seo Ji-hye (My Perfect Stranger).
Not Others trio ahjummas as the neighborhood guys querying his matchmaking.
Cameos...Oh the list is long.
Jo Yeo-jung and Seo Hyun-woo as the OTP pair.
Han Yeri and Yoon Kyun-sang.
Kim So-yeon and Lee Dong-wook.
Hwang Min-hyun and Seo Hye-won.

And for Park Ho-san's complicated love life, Oh Na-ra is for the job.

The barista would easily be Oh Dae-hwan, his chef cameo was the best thing about FORECASTING LOVE & WEATHER

Now for the the blooming romance between the mismatched customers. The actors were already in movie together (which I haven’t watched, why are films so hard to access 😡) so I’m going with their iconic characters.

Ryu Joon-yeol’s JUNG-HWAN got the short end of the stick in ANSWER ME 1988. It’s not because he didn’t end up Deok-sun, no it’s because we didn’t get to see a snippet of his future dammit! Even Chilbongie (ANSWER ME 1994) got a meet cute with a cameo from Jung Yumi!

While Jung-hwan is the reserved type, and doesn’t communicate his feelings easily, after the events of his youth, I’m pretty sure he’s working on being more open.

Now enter Kim Tae-ri’s HEE-DO from TWENTY FIVE TWENTY ONE. She’s the one whose always loved the most, both her mother and Yi-Jin put work before her and let’s not forget Hee-do unabashedly fangirling over Yu-rim but was instead met with scorn (in the beginning).

So as both Jung-hwan and Hee-do had intense first loves, unforgettable first loves, I would be very satisfied if they met at a coffee shop and hit it off. With the interference of our barista, and our two mismatched customers commiserating over their first loves, a quiet love blossoming between the two would be nice…

Yes I’ve been thinking about this a lot okay?! Yes I know Jung-hwan is a fighter pilot but that was his brother’s dream and I definitely think he’ll quit for love, no doubt about it. He’s not married to his job, which is why I’d think he’d be perfect for Hee-do! Yes there is an age difference, with my rough calculations it’s about a 11 year age gap, not ideal but still…

This feels a liiittle too much like Evergreen and that is never a good thing.

I have no idea why I can't shake the memory of that drama, it's probably due to the trauma. Or possibly the fact the antagonist was a tree.

I think the antagonist of our drama should not be a tree.

I am embarrassed to share my contribution after reading the amazing entries already posted. However, I have had this barista side plot bunny in my possession for as long as I can remember.

Our story starts as our female lead gets hired as a temp at a café. The café owner is a warmhearted unni with a soft spot for emotional strays. Their relationship reminds me of (a female) Kang-Bae and Wol-Ju in ‘Mystic Pop-up Bar’. In this story it is the staff, rather than the customers, that flocks to the cafe for comfort. Whether it is a couch to crash on, food, or just a place to hide for a few hours between shifts, unni has you covered.

The staff consists of three more people: First, the snarky manager oppa who deals and practically lives with the paperwork in the back. If he ever ventures into the café, you are done for. He earned his right-hand man reputation for being the first stray to seek shelter in the café. He is fiercely loyal and protective of the owner and the café (definitely friends, maybe even to lovers?).

The other two remaining staff are male temps of the same age as our female lead and quick to take her under their wing. While devoted to their job and their new colleague, the duo are mostly infamous as little shits. Their daily goal is to make sure that either owner noona chases them out with her broom, or….manager hyung comes out of his paperwork lair!

Despite being very professional, the café is constantly under threat of closing down by a hostile environment that does not want the strays to soil their pristine reputation. The arrival of the female lead, combined with the love potion shenanigans, might change business for the better. The female lead and the café staff, meanwhile learn to find their way back to happiness and each other.

I think y’all may be picking Chae Jong-hyeop because this barista is gonna need to seem real innocent as he drugs his patrons. I mean, imagine if the barista were, oh, I dunno, Choi Min-soo in full Numbers character: https://imgur.com/e7YE87v

And I don’t even have problems with love potions 🥰

Might I suggest Lee Yi Kyung? I'd picturing a mix of Behind Your Touch and Love Potion where the barista has to make you coffee and slap your butt too... This is where I get my inspiration from:

https://www.tiktok.com/@lee2kyung/video/7116057646293093634?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7280507157946107424

I absolutely ADORE this idea!

I also think it would be fun to go further and have people consider who they would want to direct and write these dramas.

I have no time right now but my brain is chugging along! I love @claire2009’s casting of Seo Kang-joon so I’m stealing that and will figure out the rest later!

First and foremost, MARYYYYYYYYYYY (p.s. I can't seem to tag you here). You've been SORELY MISSED. Thanks for coming back.

Barrista: Lee Sun-kyun (SML in Coffee Prince). I don't know why but reading the prompt and I thought of him. He would make a very fine barista. And THAT VOICE..

Mismatched couple: I can't think of K actors and actresses playing mismatched couples here. Most of them are extremely beautiful, so visual-wise there wouldn't many possible mismatches. Who I am thinking of now are actually K variety veteran like Kim Jong-min (who normally teases himself, and being teased by others 2D1N cast members, about the slim chance of him being able to get a girlfriend) and Mijoo (a guest in the Superheroes episodes). They would be hilarious as a couple.

I am not reinventing the wheel and there is a template I would cherry pick some of the cast from, the wonderful reality show tvN’s COFFEE FRIENDS (2019). (Unfortunately still not available on a legal stream in the US).
As barista Yoo Yeon-sook would be my man. In CF he was the cook but he was a natural with the public who came to his shop. He goes from cook to barista.
(Son Ho-jun was the barista (if you will) in CF but of all the cast he seemed to me to be the most uncomfortable dealing directly with the public so unfortunately he doesn’t make the cut.)
Yang Se-jong was so sweetly eccentric (I am convinced he covers this up when he ‘act’) that he has to be assistant barista.
Choi Ji-woo would be the manager and keep the boys in line.
Jo Jae-yoon would have to be in there somewhere.

Shouldn't there be a murder or serial killer mystery in there somewhere?

(Sorry, had to)

I've said it once and I'll say it again: Drama producers should be lurking all over this site because we have IDEAS. I would 100% watch this show.

My first thought for ML was Chae Jong-hyeop and I'm so glad other Beanies thought of him as well! For the FL, maybe Go Youn-jung? But I don’t have quite as strong feelings about that. I want ML to have a best friend who works as a barista with him, and I'm thinking Shin Ye-eun, but no love line between them, just longstanding, good-natured bickering, supportive friendship. Definitely need a herd of ajummas ready to side-eye everything going on (but no screaming or hitting please and thank you).

In my version, I think the love potions are temporary, so the effects wear off after a couple of weeks and then the couples have to decide if what they had was real or not (and have difficult conversations in the cafe, a.k.a. the official difficult conversation location of dramaland). Park Yeon-woo and Son Hwa-ryung are obviously going to be one of the couples, and I’d love to see Lee Kyung-min as one half of another one.

Wow! I see some awesome future screenwriters here in our own beanies! (Or is that a lot of beanies have seen one too many Kdramas?!) LOL! These lists are great. Now to write to a few PDs

My brain's going in a totally different direction here in that I see SUNG DONG-IL as the grumpy ajusshi barista, who's really warm and soft on the inside.

He's a bit bitter because of three lost loves who have gone on with their (love)lives somewhere else -- YUM HYE-RAN, RA MI-RAN, JANG HYE-JIN. They've come back to town to become regulars in the coffee shop and we get their backstories interwoven with present-day pairings.

Chae Jong Hyeop, of course!

MARY??? Welcome back!!

I would cast JO YEO JEONG as the owner of a struggling cafe. In an attempt to lure young women into the cafe, she hires an arrogant charmer KIM BEOM as the front desk barista. This upsets cafe baker KIM SANG-HO who conspires with former lead barista JEON SOO-KYEONG to sabotage the plan by whispering to female customers about BOEM’s (fake) playboy scandals (child out-of-wedlock, leaving bride at alter, etc.) He does not take the rejections well which causes his rude demeanor to come out. To correct the situation, JO goes to a shaman, YUM HYE-RAN, to put the “charm” back into BOEM. YUM, whose own vanity does not allow her to use reading glasses, reads the wrong incantation; instead of making him lovable, he gets the power to make love potions. With his reputation among the local young ladies soured, BOEM feeds his vengeful, jealous thoughts by sabotaging and/or mismatching customers love lines.

When landlord HYUN BIN comes to the cafe to demand the late rent, BOEM spikes his Americano with a corresponding potion with next customer line, RA MI-HAN, a traffic patrol officer on break from writing parking tickets. After their first sips, their eyes lock in romantic fireworks. They leave together - - - RA tears up the ticket she put on his expensive foreign convertible sports car while HYUN BIN pushes aside his model-girlfriend, SEO JI-HYE, who is waiting outside for her coffee. Upset, SEO comes into the cafe to rant at the staff for being kicked to the curb. BOEM gives her the potion as well as himself, but after one sip and eye contact, SEO throws her coffee into his face as he cannot use his power to benefit himself.

YUM comes back to confess to JO that she made a huge mistake that she needs to correct, but JO stops her - - - thinking that she can save the cafe by turning it into a premium fee Love Matchmaking Cafe.

Romantic Barista Teacher Kim - Han Suk-Kyu plays barista Kim, renowned for his unorthodox techniques for creating sublime coffee drinks that other baristas envy but can never equal. At one time, Kim worked for one of the big-name coffee chains, but when several customers died due to the negligence of the company’s son (he purchased rotten beans as a cost-cutting measure), Kim was made the scapegoat and fired by the company. He opens his own business, Café Doldam, out in the middle of nowhere. Other cafés from around the country send their baristas to study under the master, known as Kim Sabu.

Yoo Yeon-Seok plays a hotshot barista, Dong-Ju, sent by his boss to learn from Kim Sabu. He and Kim constantly butt heads, as Dong-Ju thinks he’s already as good as the master. Lim Won-Hee plays the café’s manager, known for greeting customers obsequiously and falling into a panic at the slightest hint that something’s gone wrong. Jin Kyung plays Kim’s second-in-command, who keeps all the apprentice baristas in line, while Byeon Woo-Min plays a barista who specializes in caffeine-free drinks that help people to relax and sleep better at night.

Here’s a synopsis of the first three episodes.

Episode 1: Jang Ki-Yong, playing a gumiho, is sipping his drink at the bar when another patron accidently stumbles against him, causing him to disgorge his fox bead right into his macchiato. Hyeri plays a customer who mistakes the drink for her order and drinks it, fox bead and all. Dong-Ju wants to perform emergency surgery remove the bead, but Kim Sabu wisely opts for the Heimlich maneuver instead.

Episode 2: Song Joong-Ki, as Lee Do (a.k.a. King Sejong) enters the café, trailed by his fidgety eunuch. He looks up at the menu, a bit disoriented by the unfamiliar beverages on offer. (He does compliment the barista for the nice lettering on the menu, though.) Kim Sabu greets him warmly, commenting on his good looks and saying that he will get even handsomer as he gets older. When Lee Do asks for an herbal tonic, another customer, played by Woo Do-Hwan, offers him a pouch of red ginseng tonic, making sure to prominently display the package while lauding its health benefits.

Episode 3: Mistaking it for a Subway, the ducklings from Crash Landing on You wander into the café. Ju-Meok (played by Yoo Su-Bin) reassures his comrades that he knows exactly how to act in a café from having watched so many Kdramas on VHS tapes smuggled into North Korea. He strides confidently up to the counter, where he proceeds to fall into a faint when he sees that the person waiting to take his order is none other than his idol, Choi Ji-Woo.

Recurring bit: Musician 10CM comes to the café every day. The person behind the counter greets him and starts to recite some of the special coffee drinks they’re offering, but he always cuts them off and insists on ordering an Americano.

*Sounds SNSD remix of Chocolate Love, called Coffee Love*
I got you babeeeeee, I got I got Coffee my loveeeeee -88-

TRUST MY DESTINY
EPISODE 1.

The ML (Mi Do=Ahn Hyo Seob) is a childish boy that thinks it's funny to play with other people's love life.

One day his childhood enemy (In Yeon=Ong Seung Wu) tells him he shouldn't mess with other people and their lives: "you can't force love", he said. And Mi Do answers "I'm not forcing it, I'm just exposing it. They choose the destination, I just show them the way".

In Yeon, annoyed, secretly changes the coffee Mi Do did for his customers, for Mi Do's personal daily dosis of coffee.

PART 2

A few days later, Mi Do goes to the doctor thinking he developed a heart condition: "I keep getting hot and my heart keeps pounding like crazy", Mi Do explained to his doctor.
"In which situations the symptoms start manifesting?", "I have a coworker that really gets on my nerves, it usually happens when I'm with them..."

[...] Transition.

"He has no idea what he's saying" Mi Do says a regañadientes (Spanish because lazy to Google it). "Who?", In Yeon asks.
They make eye contact. Mi Do's symptoms start manifesting and he gets this mixed feelings of joy, anxiety and embarrassment.

He runs away and starts doing some serious thinking (2+2 is 4 - 1 is 3, quick math!). After realizing he's acting like one of his clients, he considers the possibility of making a mistake with the orders and his coffee. What really bothers him is that his feelings are being directed to the man he has been hating since he was 8 yo.

In Yeon appears in front of him: "Hey! How can you disappear like that? The boss is looking for you". Mi Dog's heart starts racing, his body temperature increases and he can't control his emotions. Filled with confusion and desperation Mi Do lets out a dramatic "NOOOOOO".

[TO BE CONTINUED]

This fake fantasy show is getting WILD! However, taking into accounts all the ideas that been thrown into this 'production', I may give it a shot of course when it's done and after I read the recaps and comments from fellow beanies. Break a leg!

Delurking because seeing Mary's name on the post (is that THE Mary..?) and decided to join the theme ><

Am thinking about a reluctant barista plot a la Extreme Job for a twist. Ha Seok-jin can be the perfect and cold special op oppa who suffered an injury and had to do a non-field job while recovering. Tasked with surveillance of suspected villain HQ, he decided to apply for a live-in job in the coffee shop across. Being the genius perfectionist he is, he studied to become a super-skilled barista in a record time, making the happy-go-lucky coffee shop owner, played by Kim Ji-seok, cried tears of happiness when he applied.

His wish to become a competent but nondescript employee died when he tried to stop a publicly fighting couple by serving them his coffee, and they instantly became lovey-dovey after a few sips. The coffee shop went viral overnight to the owner's happiness and our protagonist's disgruntlement. Cue hijinks when our hero set up surveillance/secret fray and other spying actions into the house across only to get ambushed by the owner and desperate customers begging for his magic brews.

To make it truly kdrama-ish, will give our protagonist a tragic background where his parents died in a car crash because he asked them to come home early for his birthday. At the funeral, his grieving granddad branded him as the cause of his parent's death, severing their familial ties and causing him to grow up alone and apathetic. Hence, being held captive in the coffee shop, our aloof hero will re-learn living as a human while interacting with the ensemble cast and solving love knots per episode in a slice-of-life drama.

Being a mystery lover, will insert a mystery (but definitely no dead body) as to who actually made the love potions happens? After our special op oppa went back to his family house in his family town and made up with his absolutely guilt-ridden grandpa, he'd find out that his family has a guardian spirit. The guardian felt so remorseful for failing to save his parents and our hero (not sure why, haven't thought that far) that he decided to save our hero from existing but not living by plonking him in the middle of the coffee shop. And the guardian's identity will be the owner, of course!

The love knots should be not just between couples but span to family and even workspace relationships. A love interest would be great but not absolutely necessary for slice-of-life, but a coffee shop cat is definitely a must! Haven't thought far for the cameo but can surely ask the Problematic Man cast to guest, hehe.

Kim Nam Gil, I want him in a more romantic role!

Again, thanks for this thread, @Mary and DB Staff! Seeing how engaging the discussion on Cast Away thread, it's truly great to see how creative most beanies are, and that got me thinking how much more satisfying it would be for us if there's a thread to do the same about dramas that disappointed us greatly. I believe we secretly wish if only a particular drama handled differently --plot wise--, especially the ending which usually let us down.