The owner steps out from behind the counter at the back of the ochre-toned room. He moves along a walkway formed by caramel-yellow vinyl banquette booths lining the shop floor on either side. A scattering of regular customers sit at compact, pale laminate tables. Calling at each as he passes, the path brings him to my position at the front by the window, where the morning light filters in. “Top up?” he asks, coffee pot in hand.
It has just gone eight on a crisp December morning. With a busy day ahead, I’m much obliged. A complimentary refill is part of the morning service at Coffee Baron, a side-street kissaten serving workers in the Kanda Nishikichō and Uchikanda neighbourhoods.
I had finished my B-set breakfast moments earlier, the more luxurious of two morning options. The alternative was set A: a slice of toast with a spoonful of marmalade and a knob of butter. B, however, included an egg—hard-boiled, white, and served in its shell. Scrambled egg, fried egg, bacon, and ham were available as optional sides, but the lone boiled egg with a single slice of toast had suited my appetite. The egg, which must be peeled by hand, lends the set a curious austerity, more so than the A-set with no egg at all. Efficient for the shop and ‘enough’ for the customer, it comes close to the purest kissaten breakfast.
The owner pours my coffee and returns to the kitchen. I sip and watch mamachari riders and office workers pass by. In a much earlier newsletter¹, I set out the basics of kissaten history. It ended on a kind of cliffhanger, with Japan’s classic coffee shops at a crossroads. What follows is a brief recap:
Japan first encountered coffee in the late Edo Period (1603–1868), after Dutch traders on Dejima introduced it to Nagasaki. Early accounts describe the drink as bitter and unappealing, though it gradually found favour among courtesans and elites, including the shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu. Endorsement at this level hastened coffee’s absorption into the culture.
It was not until the Meiji Era (1869–1912) that Japan’s first coffee shop, Kahi Chakan, opened in Ueno in 1888. Chakan briefly cast coffee as a luxury and an intellectual pursuit before closing five years later. The kissaten (喫茶店), literally a “tea-consuming shop,” truly emerged in Ginza in the early twentieth century, inspired by accounts of European café culture and frequented by artists, writers, and geisha. Two early frontrunners, Café Printemps and Café Paulista, defined the form; the latter became Japan’s first chain and survives today as the country’s longest-established kissa.
By the Taishō (1912–1926) and early Shōwa (1926–1989) periods, kissaten had diversified, dividing between entertainment-oriented cafés offering alcohol and female companionship, and junkissa (純喫茶)—“pure” kissaten devoted to coffee and light meals. Although alcohol can still be ordered in some kissaten, the prevailing model today is closer to junkissa: coffee-centred, daytime-oriented, and largely detached from alcohol consumption.
World War II disrupted coffee imports, leaving cafés reliant on substitutes until supplies resumed in the 1950s. The 60s then became a formative and expansionary period for privately owned, highly individualistic kissaten, as many staple kissa aesthetics—dark woods, dim lighting, intimate interiors, and masterful hand-drip and syphon brewing—settled into convention. The decade also produced specialised forms centred on music, including classical and jazz kissaten.
From the 1970s onward, rising coffee consumption secured kissaten’s place in mainstream culture. However, a prolonged decline in numbers followed from the 1980s. Multiple factors contributed, including the spread of coffee chains, convenience store coffee, canned and instant coffee, manga cafés, and changing attitudes toward smoking. Numbers fell from a peak of around 150,000 in 1981 to just under 70,000 by 2014.
The crossroads analogy in our previous newsletter—perhaps more accurately a T-junction—implied two possible outcomes. Down one turning lay near extinction, a future that still finds support in the data. The number of kissa has now fallen below 60,000, with bankruptcies in 2024–25 reaching record highs according to industry reports. If the trend continued in a straight line, it would suggest roughly six decades remaining for kissaten.
The other turning opened onto a possible route of survival, tentatively aligned with the adjacent Shōwa Retro trend:
Nostalgia for the Shōwa Era (1926–1989) has become a full-fledged area of interest in Japan … Exploring a Japanese Instagram hashtag like #昭和レトロ (Shōwa Retro) brings up 2.2 million images of weathered mid-century buildings, servings of curry and Naporitan, decrepit vending machines, 1960s interiors, and—crucially—exquisite kissatens.
Since I wrote this, social media–driven interest in 1960s–80s Japan has only proliferated, amplified by new waves of foreign travellers following the post-COVID tourism boom. This has yet to slow closures, but it does pull away from the straight-line scenario in which numbers fall to zero. A floor now seems more plausible: rather than disappearing, kissaten are likely to persist as a thinner, highly selective layer—perhaps numbering in the low tens of thousands nationwide under a conservative projection.
Last year, in the course of research, I queued at several kissa, including Coffee Shop Galant in Ueno, Sabōru in Jinbōchō, and Café de L’Ambre in Ginza. They belong to a minority of kissaten that has reached a level of popularity tipping into oversubscription. At Galant, I was privy to an unabashed influencer photo shoot at the adjacent table. Thirty full minutes passed, during which I finished my coffee and meal, whilst the exquisitely dressed pair beside me had still not touched theirs.
Beyond these hotspots lies a second line of kissa, with authentic retro décor and menus of varying charm. Here, queues are unlikely, yet the venues readily qualify for Shōwa Retro reels and listicles. Young Japanese customers sit among the regulars, and the creatively inclined traveller may arrive deliberately or wander in by chance. All seems well, but the shop feels, at times, one reel away from queues out the door on the next visit. For business survival, this attention is a welcome addition; for experience and atmosphere, it brings an inevitable shift in use and feel.
In an article for weekly men’s magazine Shūpure², Yūya Oyamada examines the generational gap surrounding the boom in junkissa. Drawing on commentaries from veteran patrons and cultural observers, he outlines how kissaten have moved from serving as places of refuge for middle-aged oijisan and salarymen to becoming ‘Instagrammable’ destinations for young people and foreigners, setting youthful enthusiasm against the unease of older regulars.
As one observer puts it, kissa once functioned as informal offices and waiting rooms: meeting points for those in the adult and nightlife industries, alongside publishers, manga artists, and journalists. Some cafés were notorious hideaways, places where everything from multi-level marketing pitches to AV actress interviews could be conducted discreetly. He cites Shinjuku kissaten Coffee Times and Coffee Seibu as examples that still remain, though today are instead filled with wholesome-looking young customers.
In another account, a veteran patron recalls how kissa functioned as an “address” for working men in the early Heisei Era (1989–2019). Spending hours nursing a single drink was acceptable, and before mobile phones became widespread, customers could even be ‘paged’ at the kissaten. If a boss was out of the office, there was a reasonable chance he could be reached by calling his regular coffee shop. Danwashitsu Takizawa, which operated until 2005, is given as one such example. Coffee cost over 1,000 yen, but in return customers could stay as long as they liked, making it a favoured third space among media professionals.
A dichotomy emerges between these adult, functional, everyday spaces and the nostalgic, photogenic destinations coveted by the young. Between the lines of their accounts, Oyamada’s veterans express a certain melancholy as they watch the future unfurl. The space becomes unstable when the outside world is allowed to enter and rearrange the terms of your presence within it. As enthusiasts photographing parfaits and tourists asking for takeout gradually permeate the clientele, you can feel the new social contract in the air. The interior becomes a sight to be seen, a backdrop for performance—the inverse of a place once used for withdrawal and respite.
That thinner, more selective layer of future kissaten is likely to be found in the negotiation of this balance. Coffee Shop Galant occupies a mammoth shop floor in an expensive urban location; it can no longer depend on customers occupying tables for hours over a single drink. The business instead turns towards accumulated history, atmosphere, and visual allure. Approve of it or not, retro appeal is simply— and, in some respects, reassuringly—filling a gap that had already begun to open.
Yet, away from this tension, extensive, indiscriminate walks across Tokyo reveal a third line of kissaten. They exist in considerable numbers, forming an invisible majority. Here, respite remains the priority, though it comes at the expense of aesthetic flourish. This is the resilient, everyday kissa.
The everyday kissa tends to have few Google reviews, and even fewer memorable furnishings or menu items. It is retro through persistence alone: façades, signage, and interiors selected for durability, outlasting cycles of taste by simply never acknowledging them. The core clientele remains the oijisan, older ladies who lunch, and the salaried worker. There is little here to engage teenagers or tourists. Light is plain and unedited, the atmosphere dry and restrained. A glance or two may follow your entry, and you will almost certainly be expected to peel your own boiled egg.
It is the third morning in a week of staying nearby that I’ve had breakfast at Coffee Baron, though I leave for London today. As I pay the bill at the register, I ask the owner—someone I’ve come to know in a small, familiar way—how long he has been in business. Fifty years next year, he tells me, and he is second generation. I say that I’m grateful, and that he might be running the perfect kissa, a remark he laughs off. I imagine he sees it much as I do when I meet visitors to London admiring greasy spoon cafés and fish & chip shops.
There are other customers waiting, so I don’t begin to explain why I value his shop so highly. But perhaps it comes down to this: when people say they want to escape the crowds, what they are often describing is the exhaustion of synchronisation. A lack of space—mental as much as physical—produced by everyone trying to consume the same thing at the same time, in a world where access to travel and information has never been broader. And, viewed one way, a degree of that pressure seems inevitable to the continued business of kissaten.
What matters to me in these spaces, though, is still the sense of retreat. A chance to be alone without being isolated; or a place to hold a long conversation without raising your voice. Peace and quiet is essential, though it works best when balanced by just the right level of activity. This is where Baron succeeds: genuinely aged yet carefully kept; lacking the retro gloss that draws cameraphones, but without any trace of decline. A confluence of factors—from its poised location to secured succession—allows it to remain an everyday kissa, one that continues to thrive. Among the kissaten that endure into the future, I would hope as many as possible remain within these bounds.
Escaping the exhaustion of synchronisation requires only a small shift: moving a standard deviation or two from the norm, and loosening one’s grip on what had been hoped or planned for time spent travelling. The greatest satisfaction likely comes from adopting this mindset and finding an everyday kissaten or two on your own, though there is also value in following the footsteps of someone who has been at it for a while.
I keep a personal log of every Tokyo kissa I visit, and plotting them on a map has long sat on my side project list. I made a start this week, with a link available in the Members’ area of the site. It currently gathers around seventy kissa—Instagrammable or otherwise—and begins to distinguish between those I felt to be oversubscribed and those I found to preserve the hideaway effect, set out across separate layers. It may prove useful if, like me, you find yourself in Oyamada’s oijisan camp, in search of a brief respite amid the heart-rending acceleration of our times.
Should you venture into one of these places and notice a foreign man dressed in black in the corner—sipping coffee, peeling a hard-boiled egg, ignoring his smartphone—do say hello.
Until we meet at an everyday kissa,
AJ
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References
¹ Kissaten at the Kōsaten
² レトロ純喫茶の若者人気に戸惑うおじさんたちの"言い分"