The new Starbucks store lets you see the North Korean village from South Korea

Coffee drinkers can sip their drinks and view a quiet North Korean mountain village from the new Starbucks at the South Korean border observation deck.

Customers must pass through a military checkpoint before entering the Aegibong Peace Ecopark observation deck, which is less than a mile from North Korean territory and overlooks North Korea’s Songaksan mountain and a nearby village in Kaephung district.

Tables and windows face North Korea at Starbucks, where about 40 people, some of them from other countries, came for the opening Friday.

The South Korean city of Gimpo said hosting a Starbucks was part of efforts to promote its border areas as a tourist destination and said the store showed “strong security on the Korean Peninsula with the presence of this symbol of capitalism.”

The checkpoint is an important site in Aegibong Park, which was built on a hill that was a strong battlefield during the 1950-53 Korean War. The park also has gardens, exhibition halls and conference halls, and a war memorial dedicated to fallen marines.

Gimpo and other South Korean border towns like Paju have been trying to develop their border areas as tourist assets, even as tensions grow between the war-torn Koreas.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been trying to put pressure on South Korea and has threatened to attack his rival with nuclear weapons if provoked. North Korea has also engaged in psychological and electronic warfare against South Korea, such as flying junk-filled balloons into the South and jamming GPS signals from border sites near the South’s largest airport.

The Kaephung region is believed to be one of the areas where North Korea is likely to launch thousands of balloons in the next few months.

South Korea’s military said on Friday the North flew dozens of balloons overnight and that trash and leaflets landed in the capital Seoul and nearby Gyeonggi province.