Mister Donut - JR Kyoto Station Building Shop — Restaurant in Kyoto

I'm writing this review immediately after I bought two donuts at this store in Kyoto station. It was my first time returning to Kyoto in 4 years. Because of the pandemic, I couldn't visit Kyoto and I was very excited to come here. However, today when I bought two donuts at this store, the cashier located at the 'Pieface' part of the store was visibly frustrated that I failed to understand her question in Japanese, "Is this for here or to go?". As an international student, I regret that I cannot understand Japanese fluently and I understand it is difficult for Japanese staffs to speak fluent English. However, as Japan opens its border to foreign visitors, it is regretful that she couldn't patiently ask a simple English sentence, "Is this for here or to go?". Rather, she was practically interrogating me. After this experience, I felt bad that I couldn't speak Japanese and I wanted to apologize to her.

Based on prior experiences traveling in Japan, I have always remembered that Japanese customer service is exceptional. But this experience changed my thinking. Perhaps, the customer service is only good for people fluent in Japanese. That said, I know I should not generalize this unfortunate experience. Nevertheless, I am disappointed and suggest foreign visitors who cannot speak Japanese to think twice before coming to a famous Japanese...

I have been to this Mr.donut location 3 separate times within three separate days. The first two experiences were just fine, but it is the third one that struck me in a negative way.

My group of four people ordered some donuts totaling about 2000 yen. We chose to do take out because we wanted to eat some there while taking the rest with us on our train ride and eat later. After we were finished eating we sat there and talked for a few minutes as we were waiting for our train time.

An employee came up to us and told us that because we had ordered takeout we were not allowed to sit in the cafe. Mind you, the cafe was nearly empty at this point and there was plenty of seating space available for other customers. I would understand if there was an influx of people coming and we were taking up space with a takeout order when there were customers wishing to dine in, but that wasn’t the case.

There were multiple people around us with one small cup of coffee allowed to sit after finishing their drinks just fine.

If this is a rule of the cafe, it may be the dumbest one I have ever experienced in my entire life.

The donuts are good, but the experience of the cafe...

DEC 2024

Came here in the morning and ordered several limited time only donuts including two Pokemon themed ones. The Pikachu was a soft donut filled with whipped cream and coated with a caramel chocolate glaze, light and mildly sweet. The Diglett was a choux puff filled with the same whipped cream and coated with a milk chocolate glaze, and comes with a mochi donut ring coated in white chocolate and some chocolate crumbing. The contrasting textures of the donut and the chocolate flavor made it more enjoyable than the Pikachu donut. The chocolate mochi ring donut was more chocolatey but not too sweet. The last one I tried was a savory Taiwanese special peppery minced pork in a puff pie pastry which was flaky; flavor was decent but it was cold. Would have been nice if the staff have offered to heat up the pie pastry...