ROKUYOSHA — Restaurant in Kyoto

Visited here on 2 separate occasions. Very good. Very different depending on time of day of visit. First time I visited for breakfast at 9am. Popular. Luckily no queue and I got in straightaway. Table service. Ordered black coffee and butter toast. JPY750 for the breakfast set, which is cheaper than ordering separately. Popular with local and tourists. A queue started to form outside. I left after 30 mins. No smoking. Traditional coffee shop. Leather seats

Second visit, in the afternoon at 3pm. Strangely it because a smoking cafe shop. Air was thick with smoke. Also they share tables if busy which they didn't do in the morning. For single ladies they will start with them sharing tables, but then will move them to a table by themselves if a free table became available. They placed a ashtray and matches in front of me as soon as I sat down. So I knew something was different from the morning at atmosphere. Mostly smokers. I ordered black coffee and marmalade toast. This time it cost JPY900 as not breakfast set. I left after 20 mins because the smoke was too heavy for me. When I left I noticed the sign outside that says ground floor cafe is smoking after 12pm. They have a basement cafe underneath which is non smoking, which...

! Be aware: it’s a smoking place!

Old fashioned Japanese “kissaten” coffee shop. In the midday there were a lot of customers, most of them smoking, so you don’t miss smoke in the air. But it just adds some nostalgic feeling to the place: in our days you hardly can find such a smoker’s place. The interior has wooden walls and ceiling, soft comfortable chairs, so if you are ok with smoking, you want to spend some time with a book or a newspaper here. As the coffee shop was full of customers, I was seen to the table where another customer was already sitting, to sit with him together at one table - it’s pretty uncommon custom in Japan, but I believe it was not rare in old days, so I think it is cute that you can experience this attitude here. Coffee was served in a beautiful cup and...

We were shocked by the unfriendliness! When we asked if we may come in a short “No, we’re full”was what we got back, even though the place seemed only half full. We were a group of four and two of us are fluent in Japanese, so the language problem should not be the reason to refuse us entry. When I asked if we could wait outside on the stairs the man said “No, I’m tired”. I must say this is the second time they refused to let me in, although there were seats available and besides the fact we asked politely in Japanese. Awful experience and very rude approach to potential customers. No excuses, no “we’re sorry…” or anything. A rare and therefore even more astonishing...