Meikyoku Kissa Lion
名曲喫茶ライオン
A classical listening cafe open since 1926, rebuilt after the war to the same plan: seats bolted in rows facing the speakers. You do not choose the music and you do not talk.
Not yet verifiedThe city that invented the form. Kissa were coffee shops that bought a gramophone because records cost more than a month's rent — you paid for a seat in front of someone else's collection. A century later the rooms are still here, and the newer listening bars grew out of them rather than around them.
None of these has been checked in person or confirmed by the venue yet. Each was written from what the venue publishes about itself, and every page says so.
名曲喫茶ライオン
A classical listening cafe open since 1926, rebuilt after the war to the same plan: seats bolted in rows facing the speakers. You do not choose the music and you do not talk.
Not yet verifiedJazz, Blues, Soul — the initials are the entire programme. A tiny second-floor room lined floor to ceiling with the owner's collection.
Not yet verifiedThe room that taught a generation of bar owners what a listening bar could be. Dark, narrow, and built around a pair of Westminsters.
Not yet verifiedQuiet, bookish and unhurried, with a programme that wanders from Brazilian records to modern jazz.
Not yet verifiedA daytime room in Kichijoji where the coffee is taken as seriously as the amplification.
Not yet verifiedAn unreconstructed rock bar with a wall of records and a system built to be played at volume.
Not yet verifiedWe have written up 6 in Tokyo. None of these has been checked in person or confirmed by the venue yet. Each was written from what the venue publishes about itself, and every page says so.
Baroque. The rest are set up for drinking and listening rather than eating.
Meikyoku Kissa Lion and Baroque serve coffee as well as playing records.
A bar built around a stereo, where the music is put on from vinyl, tape or a disc rather than played live, and the room is arranged to face the speakers. It is the descendant of the Japanese jazz kissa, with a bar tab and later hours.