BAGUS Shimbashi — Restaurant in Tokyo

I stayed in this Gran Cyber Cafe overnight during an extended Tokyo layover. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for inexpensive unconventional accommodations. I've previously tried a capsule hotel, which I found to be a huge disappointment (and surprisingly pricy for the value). This was much better.

You might think it weird to stay the night in a cafe, but this place is legitimate and designed explicitly to accommodate overnight stays. I believe their primary market is young people lacking traditional lodging and businessmen who've partied stayed out too late drinking. On the topic of the second matter, this area seems to be strategically located near an active nightlife. I arrived during the late evening rush to catch the last trains, and was unable to walk half a block without being propositioned for a "special massage". After checking in I decided to find a bar. I really enjoyed visiting the friendly SL酒場 (Izakaya SL Sakaba) near the train station- my first Izakaya bar.

Check-in at the cafe is 24/7, and I had no issues arriving without any previous reservation or communication. They have a few different options to fit your budget and needs. The cheapest are rentals with an office chair, but I went for the the highest end option which gives you a lying room. It's basically a private cubicle with a nice padded floor to sleep on, a blanket and a padded arm-rest/chair to lean against while you use the computer provided. The rental gives you access to the internet, the extensive manga collection and unlimited drinks from the coffee/tea dispensing machine. It appeared that there were other perks such as games and videos available on the computer, but I didn't really look into them. The showers require a small extra fee - I was planning to use one in the morning but was told there was a half hour wait, so elected to grab breakfast and catch my flight instead. I think such waits for the shower may be a common occurrence.

I was offered two different options for overnight stay. One was 6 hours, which is probably sufficient for a quick overnight refresh. I went for the 10 hour option to get a full rest. Even with the highest priced option, this still set me back only about 2400 Yen, which I think beats most or all of the cheapest hotels around (I remember paying around 4000 Yen for a dirty capsule hotel and 3500 Yen for a dirty hostel a few years back and $48 recently for a nice AirBNB). I actually preferred this experience to the cheap hostels I've tried in the past, and the no-hastle check-in procedure gives it a huge convenience factor. The facility actually seemed very nice, even premium.

I got a good sleep and would highly recommend this to anyone who doesn't need the luxurious hotel bed experience who's looking for a cheap no-hastle place to crash for the night.

Bagus is a chain, with several different overnight cyber cafes in different parts of the city. They also seem to have a selection of more conventional bars and cafes though, so if you're looking for accommodations I would search for a Gran Cyber Cafe to be safe. Alternatively, they also have locations labeled as Comic Cafe B-Net (one in Kamata very close to Haneda airport) which appear from the website to offer very...

Below average experience. First of all, the website says they have table tennis, but they don't. We had to play billiard. Second, you can see that they're trying to get as much money from you as possible: instead of letting you choose the drink and then starting to count your time for the pool table, they start counting the moment you enter, so the time used deciding what to drink or eat is lost time; then, when you're finished playing, they tell you to leave and don't allow you even 1 minute to sit and finish your drink, not even with empty tables available. Those 5 minutes of charge that they are gaining doing that represent an ok short-term policy for getting some extra money now, but an absolutely loser strategy in the long run, because no person who goes to a bar likes to have to rush or leave a drink there. Drinks and pool table were good, and waiters were nice alright, but it's not cheap and, especially in a country like Japan, where customer service is normally excellent, those petty details in the end ruin the whole experience. We'll look for better...

Clean and classy joint with reasonable pricing. We were however not informed it was on us to monitor the time. The staff charged us an additional session price for exceeding the time limit...