The Kanto Kominka Café Map

This is a ledger of cafés in old houses across the Kanto region, kept as a map in rows and routes. Each entry gives the building, the nearest station and the walk, the hours, and the chapter that tells the house’s story, and every figure is as a page states it, at the date that page bears. The diagrams below are schematics of stations and walking times, not geography, and the ledger grows as pages are checked. For the idea behind it, begin with The Kominka Café: A Reader’s Atlas of Old Houses and New Coffee; for manners and hours, How to Visit a Kominka Café: Hours, Shoes and Patience.

How to Read the Map

• Every figure is stated. Times, hours and dates are as the cited pages give them. Where two pages differ, both figures appear.
• Nothing is drawn to scale. The diagrams show order and walking times, and they imply no direction or distance beyond that.
• Confirm before you travel. Small cafés change their hours, and the chapters give the page dates.
• One house, one chapter. Each row links to the chapter that tells the building’s history.

East and North Tokyo

Three starting points reach four houses: Yanaka for Kayaba Coffee, Hikifune Station for Koguma and Blue Brew, and Takenotsuka Station for the Engawa Café Showa House. Their histories are in Old Tokyo East: Kayaba, Koguma and the Engawa Café, and the first of them is the pause in Walk Five of Five Walks Through Tokyo and One Beyond It.

The Kamakura Coast

One line serves the four houses on the coast: the JR Yokosuka Line to Kita-Kamakura and Kamakura, and the Enoden on to Hase. Their histories are in Kamakura and Hase: Four Houses Between the Hills and the Sea.

The Map in Rows

Further Names to Check

Four more houses appear on pages we read. The evidence for each is thinner, and in two cases older, so they are pointers and not entries.

What the Map Does Not Yet Hold

The Kanto region has seven prefectures, and the map so far reaches Tokyo and Kanagawa, with one pointer in Saitama. Chiba, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma have no entry yet, and Yokohama and a fuller Kawagoe are waiting for pages we can check. The ledger grows as those pages are read.

Our Reading: What Earns a Place

An entry here needs a building that a page dates or describes as old, a page that states what the visitor can do there, and a function that opens the house to the public. In our reading, that is a modest test, and it excludes a good deal: cafés that borrow the look of an old house without the house, entries that rest on a single photograph, and any claim that cannot be traced to a page. The map would rather be short and right than long and loose.

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Questions and answers

What is the Kanto Kominka Café Map?

A ledger, in rows and route diagrams, of cafés in old houses across the Kanto region, with the facts that cited pages state.

Is it drawn to scale?

No. The diagrams are schematics of stations and walking times, and the table gives the same facts in rows.

How many cafés does it hold?

Eight entries, four in Tokyo and four in Kanagawa, with four further names to check.

How do I check the hours?

Each chapter gives the hours as the page states them and the date the page bears; the visitor guide explains what else to confirm.

References

Dates and figures in this chapter were checked against these pages. Where accounts differ, the text says so.

• JEEPE: Kominka, Japan’s traditional houses
• Taito Cultural and Historical Society: Kayaba Coffee
• Nippon.com: Kominka Café Koguma
• Nippon.com: Engawa Café, Showa House
• Nippon.com: Blue Brew Coffee Roaster
• Nippon.com: With Kamakura
• Nippon.com: Kamakura Kitahashi
• Kanagawa Tourism: Mami-Ana Café
• Japaholic: Tsubame Café
• Tokyo Tourism: Kamakura day trip

Continue reading

• The Kominka Café: A Reader’s Atlas of Old Houses and New Coffee
• Old Tokyo East: Kayaba, Koguma and the Engawa Café
• Kamakura and Hase: Four Houses Between the Hills and the Sea
• How to Visit a Kominka Café: Hours, Shoes and Patience
• Five Walks Through Tokyo and One Beyond It
• The Tokyo Atlas: A Reader’s Guide to the Capital and Its Counterpoint
• The Japonista Universe
• Collector Guides
• The Japonista Thesis

Index terms: kanto kominka cafe map · kominka cafe tokyo · kominka cafe kamakura · kamakura kitahashi · old house cafe kanto · kayaba coffee · koguma cafe · engawa cafe showa house · with kamakura · mami-ana cafe · tsubame cafe · blue brew coffee roaster · tokyo cafe in a heritage building · japanese old house cafe guide