Been in Japan for a while and my wife and I will probably stay here forever as she is Japanese. Was thinking when I retire, it’d be awesome to open some small cafe or food truck or something that purely has English speaking staff, english menus, English or foreign food.
My thought is that there are surely people in japan that want to learn and speak English to people but are too scared. If I advertises this place as a friendly place to come and have a chat with like minded people who can speak English, would it have any success or completely flop?
For example if there were high school or University students who wanted a job to practice their English, it would be a more fun way to learn and practice by working in an environment where they only communicate in English and also get paid.
Thoughts?
21 comments
You’d be throwing away a lot of potential business by being English only. A lot of customers won’t want to use only English. Running a cafe/food business is hard enough, the margins are thin and competition is fierce. Isolating yourself from the majority of potential customers probably means the business wouldn’t survive.
I’ve seen “English cafes” before and they seem to mostly be like a casual English school with private lessons and drop in group conversation classes.
There are already a couple of cafes that position themselves as catering to English learners [[1](https://englishonlycafe.com/en/)%5D%5B%5B2%5D(https://mickeyhouse.jp/english/)]. You could check them out, see how they are doing.
Probably no japanese will enter then, because they are too scared to speak english. Also, how are you gonna force people to talk to each other? If i go into a café im usually minding my own business and not interacting with strangers, or do you mean only talking with staff?
1. Restaurants and cafes are incredibly difficult businesses to run well and keep from bleeding massive amounts of money. Excluding quite literally at least 95% of your potential customers is generally a bad idea.
2. If you really want to open a cafe in English then do it somewhere like Yokosuka with a large US naval base, and a lot of people who speak zero Japanese. Then you have a decent customer base to work with.
I think that it is a great idea! I’m Japanese, and I hear from a lot of people that they want to speak English, but cannot find the opportunity to do so. I’d love to hang out at those places and many others would too!
Just a tip – If you want to open a cafe that is guaranteed to attract English speaking customers (and tourists) then make everything gluten free. You won’t even need to encourage people to speak English it will naturally be full of English speaking people because it’s mainly a western problem.
I don’t think it’s a bad idea, but like others have said, it’s been done. Perhaps instead of focusing on English, maybe making it an English and Japanese cafe? So as not to put off Japanese customers.
I know a person who did this on the first floor of their successful eikaiwa they’d run for 15+ ears. Crashed and burned haaaard. The reality is that most food businesses tend to flame out within a year or two, limiting by restricting your environment by making it English-only etc, unless you’re in a super foreigner-friendly area and have amazing food, is gonna make the hurdle that much higher. Not saying don’t, but be well aware of the risks.
It’s brilliant. You should call it HUB.
I volunteered at one once upon a time in Vietnam, and it was basically a normal cafe, but it had English speaking volunteers who would come in, and the customers could practice speaking or something with us. They didn’t “have” to use English, but no one would logically come there if they didn’t want to practice, because you could get coffee anywhere.
There’s a Cafe in Tokyo called…
English Only Cafe. Try again later?
These kind of places do exist but I personally avoid them bc they’re usually full of creepy Japanese guys who are trying to date a white girl.
It’s a nice idea but I don’t think that alone will draw in customers. Also unless you have staff that constantly talks with the customers I don’t people will voluntarily talk with other customers.
I have an idea for a café though. A cafe that opens before 10am.
I’ve been to a few cafes with this model. It’s very popular for English majors in college or people apart of groups like ESS (English speaking society) to go. Especially if you hold English events like pumpkin carving for Halloween or Christmas events or English game nights or find a local Eikaiwa to promote your business and do joint events/study sessions, it tends to be fairly popular. I would recommend still having some Japanese speaking staff just for when Japanese customers can’t do English (most English cafes still have Japanese speaking staff), but overall from what I’ve seen it’s not a bad idea.
I guess if it’s like an eikaiwa cafe maybe. I used to work at an eikaiwa cafe, where we would sit at a table and converse with the customers and the customers could order food and drinks and stuff.
id recommend having “english days,” or run a lot of english only special events, that way you wouldn’t alienate customers who aren’t looking for only english service because even for people who really want to learn that could be exhausting, but it would still establish it as a place for people to use english even on regular days
every time if a white loser marries an asian woman (regardless of country) the sexpest doesnt wanna bother learning their native tongue, what a loser that woman gotta be too lmao
Don’t go into the food business. Don’t drag your wife into the food business after you retire. There are a number of apps that allow for free or cheap convos for foreign language learners. If this is REALLY what you want to do, start by having events NOW and see what the response is. Do a Meetup or something like that.
My friend runs a bar with the exact same theme. She speaks Japanese really well and most of her customers speak very little English and just want to have a drink and throw phrases around here and there. Very few can hold a conversation. Mostly she speaks Japanese to them. You need Japanese staff or foreign staff who can speak both languages comfortably IMO. As far as money goes I’m not sure how well she’s doing but it hasn’t shut down and it’s been alive during the pandemic until now.
Many such cafes have flopped. Only one has lasted through the years and people travel from outside Tokyo to go there.