Portals of the past: Peering into Tokyo's traditional kissaten coffee shops www.japantimes.co.jp

“Sorry, we’re full,” I hear someone say as I open the door to Ladrio, a pre-eminent kissaten (traditional coffee shop) situated in a tumbledown alley in Tokyo’s Jimbocho neighborhood.
Coffee Taro | RIKO MONMABoom years“Naomi” was published two years before the opening of Lion in Dogenzaka in 1926.
Yasuhiko Fukuzono, owner of Flau Records and a self-confessed fan of kissaten, says it’s important for traditional coffee shops to stick to their basic formula.
The exterior of Coffee Taro | RIKO MONMAThe modest Coffee Taro in Musashi-Koyama, for instance, is a wonderful world on the second-floor of a drab precinct located on Tokyo’s longest covered shōtengai (shopping arcade), Palm.
Coffee Taro | RIKO MONMAPreserving the pastThe future fate of Taro, and dozens like it, may already be sealed.