ARTNIA Square Enix — Restaurant in Tokyo

*For getting reservations: Don't worry about it! You have to be a Japan resident to get reservations which concerned us at first, but literally just walk in and you can be seated no problem.

Yet another dream come true! First Square Enix game was Kingdom Hearts 2 and my brother and I have been hooked ever since. The themed menu is really cool too. I wish it was larger with more easter eggs from other titles - was mostly generic Dragon Quest, some generic Final Fantasy themed food, and of course, a few Final Fantasy VII themed options too. I got food poisoning from dinner the night before and the sickness was really starting to kick in here. Thankfully, they literally had a Potion drink on the menu, which genuinely helped me feel better! The staff was really nice but I docked a star because they only let you order food once at the beginning. Even though there were barely any customers eating, they would unfortunately not let us place food orders after our initial order of just drinks. Would have been nice to know ahead of time.

You can walk around and view the goods store at any time and do not need a reservation to shop. It actually has a mostly different selection than the Square Enix Cafe store in Akhihabara (I do think that one is overall better though). A lot more Dragon Quest, actually has KH acrylic stands, some different FF14 merch, a little bit of Nier, and of course, a good amount of FF7. If you do come here, make sure to check out the other store too and vice-versa. But the coolest part by far is the special room they have in the back with a waterfall and materia pool. I really think the company just uses that as their own collector's room, filled with figurines of their very best and most famous titles. Just walking through it was incredible! Not surprisingly very FF7 heavy, but there was also FF Tactics, FF10, FF6, Nier, and KH all represented. Only a select couple of the figurines have price tags next to it meaning you can go buy copies of those figures. On the far right of the room is a small selection of figurines and shirts you can buy. There's really only a couple copies of each, but don't worry if they're out of stock of what you want. Although they did not have extras in the back, we had the idea of checking out the Animate nearby also in Shinjuku and they actually did have in stock the Rebirth shirts we were unable to buy here at Artnia, and at the same MSRP price too!

Overall, if you are a Square Enix fan, you HAVE to come. Just viewing the special figurine room in the back is worth it alone. Was simply...

One of the itineraries that my daughter had arranged for us during our overseas trip from Singapore to Tokyo is to go to this particular restaurant that she has wanted to visit, dine and chill. However upon reaching the restaurant yesterday on 18 July 2024 afternoon, we didn’t manage to secure a four seaters table, eventhough the restaurant is not fully packed. We have noticed that there is a small table (for two seaters) available and we have requested the male waiter to allow us to bring another unused chair from another two seater table so that we have dine together. However the male waiter replied us with a “No” and didn’t offer any further help to us. Eventually we had no choice but to leave my daughter to dine in herself and we have to resort to buy some quick bento from opposite supermarket to eat at the park. This kind of rigid customer service is the first of a kind that I experienced in Tokyo as I felt that all Japanese are kind and courtesy and would do within all their means to show hospitality to the foreigners. However in this particular case, it is not. Hope the restaurant manager would educate and train your waiters better in term of his customer services. It is not we cannot afford additional meal or drink or dessert in your restaurant or that we demand a bigger table, but all we wanted is to enjoy the dining experience with the family (3 of us) together. In the end, my daughter apologised to us for making us travel all the way from mejiro station hotel to here but we cannot enjoy the dining together as a family. This is one and the only bad experience that I have encountered in Japan. You not only set a bad reputation for your restaurant for the inflexibility but you have lost two customers from this incident. I would strongly urge all future travellers to avoid this bad customer service restaurant in future. As for me, I vow not to return to this...

The atmosphere of the shop and the showroom is lovely, I've visited the store the previous two times I've been to Tokyo and this time and have always absolutely loved it here. However, this time was the first time I had food and drink in the cafe. I was so excited to take my partner there to see the place, but the experience was hugely tainted by one of the bar staff. After ordering food and drinks, I got up to get more water, as the water is on the bar with glasses, implying you can top up. When I went up the bar staff (long dark hair, tied back) was gesturing back to the table and telling me what to do, however my Japanese is only a beginner level so I didn't understand. I said in Japanese I'm sorry I don't understand and she continued to gesture to the table. I thought she wanted me to go sit down and so I did, and then a minute or two later she made a big enough sigh and show of grabbing the water that I heard her, she came over to the table and topped up the waters before returning to the bar and slamming the water jug down, continuing to show her bad mood. I was really surprised as this is the worst attitude I've ever seen when visiting Japan. She then went to the back room after delivering some other drinks. Perhaps she was having a bad day, however it really ruined the experience. We were going to get cocktails and souvenirs there as we are huge final fantasy fans, but I was so put off by the waitress that we just paid for what we'd already recieved and left. It would be one star, except the shop is nice (so long as you don't use the cafe) and the other two servers (red haired lady and a man) were very nice. That and in my previous experiences I have loved going to Artnia, but I don't know if I would visit again after today.

In summary - the shop is nice, and most of the staff are nice, however one was...