Similarities:
- The characters in Mystic Pop-Up Bar attempt to counsel customers when they visit the bar for a drink or for supper. The psychiatrists in Dinner Mate try to provide food therapy to their clients.
- Both are comedies with many hilarious moments.
- There's romance in both dramas!
- Both attempted to explore mother-child relationships.

Differences:
- I think Mystic Pop-up Bar was better in food therapy than Dinner Mate haha.
- Mystic has more character development and each episode explores a social issue so I think it is a very meaningful show. Whereas Dinner Mate focused more on the romance between the characters.
- Another main difference is that Mystic Pop-up Bar has a supernatural theme whereas Dinner Mate's theme revolved around mental illnesses. Overall Mystic Pop-up Bar felt a lot more serious (despite the endless comedic moments) because it touched a lot on life and death and was also a critique on Korean culture.
- Even though the romance in Mystic Pop-up Bar was not the focus, it was a lot more touching than the romance in Dinner Mate to me (I was moved to tears!!)

Both have moms who come back from the dead. Both explore the importance of a mother's role in family and in life.

Another Son Ye Jin movie! Both star Son Ye Jin as she tries to uncover the truth about a child's disappearance. In both movies, Son Ye Jin's character suspects her own family members as the main perpetrator.

The drama made a lot of references to Crash Landing on You, because the actress who played Do-hee (Seo Ji Hye) was in it, so I think it's worth mentioning here. In my opinion, CLOY explored the destiny theme (which sadly only appeared in the first half of Dinner Mate) very well. Both dramas also have very funny and lovable female leads.