Step out of any busy station in Tokyo and you’ll see, whether right in front of you or some tens of feet down the street, a plethora of coffee chains to pick from. Their signs are familiar, as are their smells, taste, and atmosphere. For many foreigners, the sight of a Starbucks might even be comforting, in the same way that the golden arches of McDonald’s can be. These chains feel safe because of their uniformity, and barring minor differences between locations, they provide this safety by adhering to a single unified identity.

But when I’m looking for a coffee shop to spend my time, I do not always want the same old, same old experience. Sometimes, I want to be greeted by an altogether unexpected genre of food on the menu. Sometimes, I want to be bewildered by the possibility of a flavor combination I would never have expected. And sometimes, I simply want to be able to feel the personality of a café and its owner. That is where Ofunato’s local cafés step in and truly shine.

This is of course not to say that Tokyo or other big cities don’t have their fair share of independently run cafés, but there truly is something special about the eclectic collection of cafés in a rural city like Ofunato that I feel is worth talking about. Oftentimes it is not just the food and drink, but the décor, the menus, the little details that make up a coffee shop that truly complete the experience – something that I hope to communicate to all of you today, with the cafés I’ve chosen to introduce here.

１．CAFE gull

Starting off our list is none other than CAFE gull, a picturesque café located on the southern tip of the Nagasaki peninsula on Ofunato’s eastern side. Established quite recently in 2023, the café thankfully survived the recent Ofunato wildfire that ravaged the area directly north of where the shop is located.

Due to its unique location, the café itself is somewhat difficult to get to, but its windows sport a beautiful view of the ocean from atop the cliff where the shop sits, and outdoor seating is also available for those who want to enjoy the weather. Many birds fly across the landscape, including the shop’s namesake seagulls, and you can see boats pass by across the ocean as well. The view alone immediately put this café as one of my top three café experiences ever, but the delicious coffee as well as the cozy interior definitely solidified that placement. During the summer, they offer special iced drinks to help you keep cool, including themed ice cream floats that were very popular. I also noticed that there is a woodfire furnace inside the shop as well, so even in the dead of winter the inside can stay warm and comfortable.

２．Café Marizoh

Located in a small neighborhood down a narrow street of Ikawacho, Café Marizoh is as much of a cool, local, down-the-street type of coffee shop as you could find anywhere. From the outside, the plain and cozy-looking shop looks like any other building around it – if anything, almost a little too plain. But the moment you step through the wooden front door, you’re greeted by an interior overflowing with personality, atmosphere, and most of all, music. You can very clearly understand the owner’s passion for music from the shelves of records and CDs that greet you when you enter, as well as of course the two record players set out right in front of the register. Rumor has it that you can pick out records or CDs and request that they be played, but I haven’t worked up the guts to do that just yet.

In terms of food, while they certainly has the usual options of pasta and curry or whatnot, what makes Café Marizoh stand out are their grilled/toasted sandwiches. Evidently cooked in a purpose-made sandwich press, the bread was perfectly crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, while each side of the sandwich had been folded and pressed neatly into itself to prevent any spillage. I had ordered a banana and peanut butter sandwich, and the creaminess inside the sandwich complemented the toasted bread wonderfully. I also got a mango lassi to help with the recent heat, and looking out onto the mountains surrounding Ofunato from the cool and dark inside of the shop made for a nice relaxing afternoon.

３．OneTree Café

Australian-owned and operated, OneTree Café does a great job of offering a unique café experience that you might not expect to find in Japan at all, let alone Ofunato. Focusing on providing a taste of Australian café culture, the menu features not only coffee but also a variety of Australian teas, as well as a wide variety of Australian meat pies! Notably, the dessert menu also features some more classic choices you’d find in cafés outside of Japan, such as affogato and tiramisu. I could definitely taste the care that the owner puts into the quality of his coffee from both my drink and dessert, and the meat pies were very satisfying, especially when buttery and flaky meat pies are so rare to come by in Japan.

Also of note are the lessons that the café provides in both English language and coffee brewing! Located just a few minutes from Sakari station in northern Ofunato, it makes a perfect stop after a day of travelling through the north side of the city. I personally chose to visit on a weekend, and it made for a great brunch to start off a late day.

４．Café Crêperie Antenne

While leaning more towards the crêperie side than the café side of things, my experience at Antenne was too good to not include on this list. Stepping into the shop, I was immediately hit with the buttery and softly sweet scent of a crêperie, only light enough to be pleasant, and not at all overbearing on the senses. Specializing in galettes (something like a savory cross between a pancake and a crepe), their lunch special set included a galette of your choice, plus soup and a drink, as well as a crêpe if one opted for the B set, which I did.

Simply for providing a meal that I’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else in Ofunato (and perhaps even the whole prefecture!), Antenne makes this particular list of cafés for its delicious uniqueness.

５．Café Yuki Grandpa

And last but certainly not least on our list is a personal favorite of mine, Café Yuki Grandpa. While partly because of its proximity to my workplace, making it all too easy to stop by after a tiring day in the office, Café Yuki Grandpa has one of the best food menus amongst cafés in Ofunato, making it one of my top picks. This is not at all saying that the food at other cafés is in any way inferior, but Café Yuki Grandpa simply has a superbly diverse food menu, ranging from noodles to curry to rice bowls and more, as well as a daily special, which is never a miss either. Combined with their excellent coffee menu, which also features seasonal limited options (I miss the Oreo cookie and maple cinnamon lattés I had in the winter dearly), Café Yuki Grandpa executes each of their menu items flawlessly, and I’m both satisfied and surprised at the capabilities of their kitchen each time I order something new. As a consistent option where I can almost always try something new, Café Yuki Grandpa has definitely cemented itself in my top picks for cafés in Ofunato.

With this list, I hope I’ve provided a decent guide to cafés worth visiting in Ofunato! Naturally this is neither an exhaustive nor a ranked list, and there are surely more shops hiding throughout the city that I haven’t been able to visit yet. It’s the hunt for those shops that make the experience all the more fun, and I hope some of you can get the chance to have this experience for yourselves someday!