Yeah… I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it or not but I’m 15 minutes away from 6 Starbucks Coffee shops here in Fukuoka. Now that’s going north, south, and east. I haven’t checked west yet…. there’s probably 3 more that way somewhere. One of the Starbucks is across the street from another Starbucks and about 3 blocks or so from another one down the side street.
So here we are… going into the Starbucks that’s inside Tsutaya.
For the record… Tsutaya is pretty sweet. It’s 6 stories and you can rent DVDs, CDs, buy them, get books and magazines, and enjoy some Starbucks. The DVD releases that have been out for a while usually run on a special that’s 4 DVDs for 1000 Yen. I’d say about $9-10 US.
Here’s kind of a cool photo
And here’s a picture I took from Starbucks of Starbucks across the street while enjoying some coffee with some friends.
By having so many Starbucks so close to me I’d have to say
- It’s kind of crazy in my opinion
- They are is busy and the city is big
- I love it!
Nobody has spoken English to me at Starbucks so far. So how do I order? First thing I did was listen. I listened to other people ordering coffee and just repeated what they say. A lot of the items sound similar to the way I say it in English. I also asked my fiancee about a few items. And if it’s busy I usually order as good as I can and point to the pictures at the same time. So far so good!
I’ve enjoyed my visit to all Starbucks in Japan so far. Sure, they don’t use a $20,000 coffee maker, but they do good work. They’re all very clean, casual, and the employees are very very friendly. One location (which I took a picture of) has screwed up orders taken from a native Japanese speaking customer 3 out of 4 times so far but the other locations are perfect. I do go to smaller cafes but I do like chain shops and restaurants because you get what you expect, meaning I can order a latte from the U.S. or in Japan from a chain and it’ll taste the same. To me that’s a good thing when I don’t have time to hope my money and satisfaction will work out in my favor. I’m a big fan of not wasting money. I do like the inexpensive instant coffee here in Japan, but treating yourself to a 410 yen latte is always nice.
Interested in more info? Here’s the Starbucks Japan website in English. If you’re interested in knowing some prices, just check their beverage lineup or look at some samples below.
Caffè Latte Cost:
Short 240cc = 280yen || Tall 360cc = 330yen
Grande 480cc = 380yen || Venti® 590cc = 430yen
Coffee of the Day:
Short 240cc = 310yen || Tall 360cc = 360yen
Grande 480cc = 410yen || Venti® 590cc =460yen
Entries (RSS)
i wonder if starbucks wont outdo themselves..opening up SO many stores…we’ve got three or four on one street and two in the SAME station! it’s not like we’re Tokyo… gotta wonder..but yeah…it’s nice to have!
Yeah it’s crazy how Starbucks is all over the place. I had a GPS system and if you wanted it would tell you where the closest Starbucks locations were. I enter it in and within a distance of 5 miles there would be like 20 locations. It was crazy!
Hi Steve!
This is only sort of related to this post but..
Do you know about the photo contest on JapanPhotoGuide.com?
I thought I’d mention it to you because you seem to be intrested in photography
I collect Okinawa Designed Starbucks mugs. Everytime I go to Okinawa I get one.
Jyankee – If they were smart they’d buy another company and compete against themselves while staying within the monopoly laws… however that works.
Mike – Don’t you think that’s a little excessive?
Tori – Thanks for the heads up, I read about it today from a post Chris made on the Daily J and your post there.
Travis Morgan – That’s cool! When I visit I’ll have to check it out. I see they’ve released a ‘cherry blossom’ travel mug exclusive to Japan. Pretty cool… but pink… I won’t be getting one.
The prices really seem comparable to Canada at least. There aren’t that many where I live, but there seems to be new ones opening up all the time (they have lots of competition from Second Cup and Tim Hortons here though).
It’s pretty crazy that they are so super-dense in Japanese cities (seemed pretty much the same situation as what you’re talking about in Fukuoka when I went to Kobe, Osaka and Tokyo). I guess they are busy enough that they can have that many and still do high enough volume?
Come on now, there are definitely better coffee shops in Japan than Starbucks. Hell, if it weren’t for the smoking, I’d take Doutor or Excelsior.
liz – I think it’s interesting how the prices are comparable. And yeah, Starbucks probably does high volume. They’re always full whenever I go.
billywest – I haven’t checked out Doutor yet but I’ve seen them all over the place. But I still like Starbucks. Can’t beat their breakfast blend, I like their employees, I like their corporate setup, I like how bright it is, I like how a latte from there tastes like a latte from the U.S., and I like their atmosphere. I think it’s pretty crazy how Starbucks builds shops so close together though. Another chain you didn’t mention was Caffe Veloce’s which has cheap and decent coffee (200-250 Yen or something like that for a mocha or large coffee) which is pretty smokey too. It’s never fun drinking coffee somewhere and then leave smelling like you were at a bar.
I went to the Starbucks in the Yurikomome station at Shimbashi several times. I didn’t think about how expensive a grande was until later when I thought about it. Oh, and I did buy the Starbucks Cherry blossom glass mugs, liking pink and all.^^ I’m not sure if they’re considered travel mugs.
Pamela – You’re so lucky! I was going to get a few of those mugs as gifts but I went a little too late and missed out. The stores I stopped at were all sold out.
Sure sounds like back home Steve, lol. Everywhere you go you’d see a Starbucks and sometimes they’re even just across the street from another! My bf and I both love Starbucks, thanks to your post we can be happy that at least we can treat ourselves to nice coffee once awhile!
starbucks japan got some good stuff like their green tea coffee. Its really awesome
http://japansugoi.com/wordpress/starbucks-green-tea-coffee-kyoto-matcha-latte/
But how do you ORDER a Starbucks coffee? My signature drink in the US is a tall nonfat mocha with no whipped cream. How would I order that in Japan?
I leave in 2 days to go for 10 days. Ugh…I need my Starbucks! LOL
when i visited japan i got the grande or whatever and it was HUGE! was so amazed i got an empty cup to take home to show everyone and my regular peeps at the starbucks and told them they needed to up their game lol