No need to be a regular: a new cafe in Harajuku treats all customers like friends

A Tokyo cafe that opened in April 2023 wants every customer to feel like they're among friends. Known as Tomodachiga Yatteru Cafe (TYC) or 'Cafe Run By Friends', it serves coffee by day and cocktails by night. The idea is for customers to have the experience of dropping by a shop or bar where a friend works part-time. Staff members talk to patrons as if they've known them for years, greeting them with an "It's been a while!" and asking, "How's your mom doing?"

The part-time bit is true: the cafe's employees are also actors and models. And the intimate ambiance extends to the menu, which lists sentences instead of standard drink names, prompting people to order "The same thing as last time," or "Is this what you were talking about?" One customer expressed, "It felt like I was talking to a friend even when I was ordering."

With a single, long table seating around twenty people, the cafe encourages social interaction not just with staff but also among customers. Instagram user @poooooodle30 observed, "Even though I went alone, it was fun to talk to my 'friends,' and I ended up chatting with strangers who sat next to me." After all, they said, "A friend of a friend is a friend 🤝"