Back in July last year I wrote this about an incredible little coffee shop I’d just visited in Osaka:
“Japan has plenty of old and dated coffee shops. Establishments that look and feel like they belong in a completely different era. At the same time, it’s a spell that can easily be broken by a TV playing in the corner, or even something minor like a modern appliance or menu.
This almost 80 year old establishment, on the other hand, has no such distractions. Everything from the dust and grime to the ageing proprietor takes you back to an earlier time. A business that has been in the owner’s family since its inception, and with coffee only costing ¥160 a cup, it’s very clearly love rather than money that keeps him going. For how much longer it’s impossible to say, but until the day it finally closes, it’ll remain a place that is truly like no other.”
Sadly it turns out the shop didn’t keep going for much longer at all, as on a return visit towards the end of last year, it was closed. Not just for the day either, but forever — something confirmed by a chat to the man running the shop opposite. The lovely old master, he was disappointed to say, died in August. Here then, as a way to remember, are photos once again from that very special visit, along with the scene that I found several months later.