Geek It! Otaku Out and About: Pokemon Cafe in Japan

Here at CtrlGeekPod, we’ve visited many Pokemon Centres and also a Pikachu Outbreak event back in 2019 … but what other Pokemon experience is still pending to be ticked off on our bucket-list? Yes, you probably guessed it! This year, we made it our ultimate quest to visit a POKEMON CAFE in Japan.

Pokemon … cafe? Yes, THE Pokemon Cafe.

So we decided to go to the Pokemon Cafe located in Tokyo’s Nihombashi Takashimaya Shopping Centre.

When it was our reservation time (they’re so precise with time!), our servers led us to our designated table in the Eevee section. Spacious, brightly lit, and decked in colourful Pokemon decorations — the cafe was surprisingly bigger than we thought.

And of course, it’s not just real-life Pokemon trainers whom are enjoying the experience — Pikachu and its friends are also having fun!

From here, you can start ordering food and drinks via an iPad. With so many options, how can one possibly choose? Below, you can see some samples — so cute!

We wanted to order everything but we ultimately settled for a hot latte with a customised Pokemon design (Wooper!); Pokémon Cafe’s Very Chocolate Parfait; Fuecoco’s Apple Soda Float; and another hot coffee accompanied by a Pikachu Tail Cookie.

Out of the food and drinks that we ordered, we particularly liked the parfait. As we dug our way through the dessert, we encountered a combination of sweet and sour flavours and other surprises ranging from crunchy textures to the sorbet ice-cream… in the shape of a Pokeball. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Mid-way our dessert time, the servers announced that Pikachu will be making an appearance in the store! This was the highly anticipated moment that we’ve been waiting for as there was no guarantee that Pikachu was going to make an appearance.

And much to our delight, he came wobbling into the cafe!

Unfortunately, due to covid conditions, everyone was to remain seated (which is quite understandable). Luckily, we were seated at the front so we managed to get a good view of Pikachu and its badass dance moves.

When you’re not devouring your snacks and desserts, guests can wander around the cafe to take photos and videos. As you go around the cafe, you can see plushies; exclusive merchandise for purchasing and signed drawings.

Honestly, our experience at the Pokemon Cafe was every otaku’s dream come true. To “see” Pikachu in the flesh and interacting with Pikachu, the cuteness was simply too much for us. Pikachu may have appeared for about 10 minutes but it made the experience super memorable in which we will always cherish.

The Pokemon Cafe is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that you can’t get anywhere else. For those who love Japanese pop-culture and Pokemon (of course), we highly recommend you to add the Pokemon Cafe to your Japan bucket-list.

We know you can’t get enough of Pikachu — you can check out more kawaii photos below. What do you think?

*** For those interested in going to the Pokemon Cafe, here are some tips!

First of all, head over the official Pokemon Cafe website. On the website, it offers a detailed description of its cafe concept – food, merchandise, locations etc. If you click the Reservations button, it will take you to the beginning of the reservation process. After selecting your desired Pokemon Cafe location between Nihonbashi (Tokyo) or Shinsaibashi (Osaka), simply go through the following pages and select your date and time.

But it’s actually not that simple! Bookings open 31 days in advance (from 6pm JST) so make sure you know your travelling dates and secure that reservation beforehand. And believe it or not, the website normally crashes around 7:55pm and bookings fill up QUICK within minutes. Unfortunately, no same day reservations can be made via website and walk-ins are only accepted if someone magically cancels on the day.

TIP: It is universally known that bookings *magically* become available around 6:20pm (JST). Don’t lose faith!

— ENDS —