In April of 2017 while my fox and I were on our anniversary trip to Japan, I spotted this strange and nifty little place in Sendai near the rail station. First I saw the cute polar bear logo, then I saw coffee!
While coffee can be found everywhere in the metro areas of Japan, it can be scarce in rural areas except for in beverage vending machines, which can also be found absolutely everywhere in Japan. There's almost always coffee in the vending machines, but... well, the coffee... it ain't great.
Since I had been drinking mostly vending machine coffee for days I was definitely looking for some good coffee for a change. I wasn't going to just walk by!
The most interesting thing, the most curious thing, the most Japanese thing about this coffee shop was the rather odd alliance it had with Coleman camping gear.
Wait? What the fuck?
Running a shop in Japan appears to be very competitive and I suspect the markets that get young peoples' money-- especially in Japan where they are very fickle and trendy-- are subject to ridiculous churn. It's got to be a bitch to compete, to stand out, to make a profit or stay in business at all.
This coffee shop's owner(s) appeared very much to be hedging their bets. “If they don't come for the Cappuccino, maybe they'll come for the camp stove!”
You can see in the pictures people enjoying their coffee surrounded by displays of backpacks, coolers and folding chairs. It was neat in that very sort of off-kilter Japanese way and I was immediately into it.
Inside, we browsed at the incongruous collection of merchandise and I knew I had to get the latte shown on the menu board featuring the bear painted in foamed milk on top. (my bear got a bit distorted being carried around) But what I had to have at all costs was one of their coffee mugs.
All the coffee served inside was in these branded mugs with the titular bear logo on it, and anyone who has ever seen Polar Bear Cafe would surely soil themselves at the resemblance.
I wanted a dozen of them! Maybe even 1500!
The cup cost somewhere around ¥1900 (about $20 USD at the time) but as we were traveling light, and had no checked baggage, we couldn't just stick lots of stuff we bought in our 1 bag we each carried or we'd be unable to move them about, or unable to fit everything, or both. No matter, I was getting this bulky, breakable item and I was taking it back with me in one damn piece!
Back home, the Shirokuma Coffee cup has become one of my favorite mugs. And I quickly regretted not buying more of them. I began conspiring of how to get more: perhaps a friend in Japan could travel ALL the damn way from his place 2 hours away by train and buy me several mugs and ship them... Nah, that's asking a bit much. Maybe I can find them for sale online if I search in Japanese? Nope.
So I decided I was lucky to have one at all and enjoyed the mug I had.
Then news of the wedding came. Some friends of ours were getting married-- in Kyōto! I couldn't go myself, but my fox was definitely going and they all planned to run about the main island and do fun stuff and so I asked my fox to stop by Shirokuma Coffee and grab me more mugs!
When he returned from his wedding trip, my fox had 3 more Shirokuma mugs for me, which he had to persuade them to sell to him as they had stopped selling the mugs since I had gotten the 1st one.
As I would soon discover, this was enormously fortunate because as I was dreaming of my next visit to Shirokuma Coffee Sendai, I went searching for more merchandise and perhaps other locations in Japan (I desperately wanted a t-shirt with their logo!) and instead found a very sad notice on the Sendai location's website telling of it's upcoming closure after only 1 year and 2 months. ='(
They graciously thanked the many patrons who had come to enjoy their coffee and promised they would stay open until the end of the month, also saying that (if I understand correctly) that it was meant to be a short-lived venture and that they got a lot of media attention.
So I was very lucky to have enjoyed my one visit. There was another Shirokuma Coffee up in Hokkaido, but it is an extremely long trip from the middle of the main island as the Shinkansen (bullet trains-- high speed rail lines) don't go there.
So I enjoy my coffee in the awesome cups and fondly remember the quirky little shop selling coffee and camping stoves.
While coffee can be found everywhere in the metro areas of Japan, it can be scarce in rural areas except for in beverage vending machines, which can also be found absolutely everywhere in Japan. There's almost always coffee in the vending machines, but... well, the coffee... it ain't great.
Since I had been drinking mostly vending machine coffee for days I was definitely looking for some good coffee for a change. I wasn't going to just walk by!
The most interesting thing, the most curious thing, the most Japanese thing about this coffee shop was the rather odd alliance it had with Coleman camping gear.
Wait? What the fuck?
Running a shop in Japan appears to be very competitive and I suspect the markets that get young peoples' money-- especially in Japan where they are very fickle and trendy-- are subject to ridiculous churn. It's got to be a bitch to compete, to stand out, to make a profit or stay in business at all.
This coffee shop's owner(s) appeared very much to be hedging their bets. “If they don't come for the Cappuccino, maybe they'll come for the camp stove!”
You can see in the pictures people enjoying their coffee surrounded by displays of backpacks, coolers and folding chairs. It was neat in that very sort of off-kilter Japanese way and I was immediately into it.
Inside, we browsed at the incongruous collection of merchandise and I knew I had to get the latte shown on the menu board featuring the bear painted in foamed milk on top. (my bear got a bit distorted being carried around) But what I had to have at all costs was one of their coffee mugs.
All the coffee served inside was in these branded mugs with the titular bear logo on it, and anyone who has ever seen Polar Bear Cafe would surely soil themselves at the resemblance.
I wanted a dozen of them! Maybe even 1500!
The cup cost somewhere around ¥1900 (about $20 USD at the time) but as we were traveling light, and had no checked baggage, we couldn't just stick lots of stuff we bought in our 1 bag we each carried or we'd be unable to move them about, or unable to fit everything, or both. No matter, I was getting this bulky, breakable item and I was taking it back with me in one damn piece!
Back home, the Shirokuma Coffee cup has become one of my favorite mugs. And I quickly regretted not buying more of them. I began conspiring of how to get more: perhaps a friend in Japan could travel ALL the damn way from his place 2 hours away by train and buy me several mugs and ship them... Nah, that's asking a bit much. Maybe I can find them for sale online if I search in Japanese? Nope.
So I decided I was lucky to have one at all and enjoyed the mug I had.
Then news of the wedding came. Some friends of ours were getting married-- in Kyōto! I couldn't go myself, but my fox was definitely going and they all planned to run about the main island and do fun stuff and so I asked my fox to stop by Shirokuma Coffee and grab me more mugs!
When he returned from his wedding trip, my fox had 3 more Shirokuma mugs for me, which he had to persuade them to sell to him as they had stopped selling the mugs since I had gotten the 1st one.
As I would soon discover, this was enormously fortunate because as I was dreaming of my next visit to Shirokuma Coffee Sendai, I went searching for more merchandise and perhaps other locations in Japan (I desperately wanted a t-shirt with their logo!) and instead found a very sad notice on the Sendai location's website telling of it's upcoming closure after only 1 year and 2 months. ='(
They graciously thanked the many patrons who had come to enjoy their coffee and promised they would stay open until the end of the month, also saying that (if I understand correctly) that it was meant to be a short-lived venture and that they got a lot of media attention.
So I was very lucky to have enjoyed my one visit. There was another Shirokuma Coffee up in Hokkaido, but it is an extremely long trip from the middle of the main island as the Shinkansen (bullet trains-- high speed rail lines) don't go there.
So I enjoy my coffee in the awesome cups and fondly remember the quirky little shop selling coffee and camping stoves.
Category Photography / Miscellaneous
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Other / Not Specified
Size 1100 x 6100px
So true! Hope you've been well. Are you still out that way, or did you move someplace else?
Can't wait to see their next venture: a cafe paired with professional welding services.
and yeah I'm still out here, though I'm now roommates with other ppl.
and yeah I'm still out here, though I'm now roommates with other ppl.
That's what I figured. I heard from wolfie who has astonishingly moved back ...here. I'm still trying to escape here myself. This state blows and our governor's a moron. And it smells here. Oh, and it's not much to look at, and...
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