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Everyone who knows a little of me – or has worked themselves through this website – knows that I’m a big fan of Final Fantasy XIV. So naturally, for my trip to Japan, I had to visit Eorzea Café. How does Eorzea Café in japan work, I wondered. Since I didn’t find much information on it beforehand, I decided to write up an article about it for anyone interested in visiting it.
Please note that this article is written in october 2023, and of course things may change when time goes on (such as menus, ways to reserve a table, admission fees etc).
Eorzea Café is a themed Café in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan. There are many themed cafés in those cities. The maid-cafés, some where you can pat cats or even hedgehogs. Some that have more general themes as the Milkyway Café that serves all kinds of star themed sweets and ice creams. And some are based on popular media, such as the Pokémon Café. Eorzea Café is the latter – it’s based on the videogame Final Fantasy 14, the second MMO RPG installment of the Final Fantasy series. That means that it is decorated to fit the game and serves drinks and food based on classes, characters and creatures of the game.
Where can I find the Eorzea Cafés in Japan?There are two permanent ones – one in Osaka, one in Tokyo. The one in Osaka is in the famous street of Dotonbori. You can also find about a million takoyaki restaurants there. Tokyos is located in Akihabara, near Akihabara station. It’s not directly at the main shopping street, but only a stone throw away.
There were two temporary ones in Kyoto and Nagoya in summer 2023. Probably for the 10th anniversary of the relaunch A Realm Reborn – but as far as I know they only existed until end of August.
It’s common in Japan to have restaurants and establishments on higher floors than the ground floor. This is also the case with both, Tokyos and Osakas cafés. So don’t expect to see a nice storefront hinting that you reached the correct place. However, the cafés are a collaboration with Pasela Resorts. This is a company that provides rooms for parties, karaoke and entertainment. You can easily identify the place by finding the huge Pasela logo. If you then take a closer look, you will find which venues are in the building. By the way, both buildings also have a Monster Hunter Café.
Osakas Eorzea Café is set on the 5th floor of the building, Tokyos on the second floor (take the stairs, the elevator goes up to the 3rd floor).
While the Café in Osaka was pretty empty when I visited and would probably not have needed a reservation, the one in Tokyo was filled to the last seat. I visited off-season, during a weekday at daytime. Everything will probably be more popular in the evening or weekends. And of course during the holidays. Better safe than sorry – book a table in advance. For Osaka I actually did this in the evening before.
You can book both cafés via Tablecheck:
https://www.tablecheck.com/de/shops/eorzeacafe-osaka/reserve
https://www.tablecheck.com/de/shops/eorzea-cafe/reserve
or via google places.
Both Cafés take an admission fee, Osaka 700 yen/person, Tokyo 1100 Yen/person. If some of your party don’t show up, you will still have to pay for their seat.
No! They are actually pretty different! If you’re a hardcore fan and plan to visit both cities, you might want to go to both!
However, let’s go over the similarities first. Both admission fees include some freebies for you. Also, you will get a freebie with every order you place. A thick cardboard coaster with artworks, bosses or creatures. So if you take two drinks and 3 meals, you get 5 coasters.
The job-based drinks are available in both Cafés. You can for example drink a Black Mage (something something blueberry soda) in both cafés. Some things of the menu overlap. For example right now both have a Zenos drink (they’re aware many people are thirsty for him – I’ll see myself out) and winged reprobation fries. But not all dishes and drinks are the same.
Both venues also sell merchandise, though Tokyo definitely has the wider range and more stock. There are no exclusive items and all items can also be found in the square enix web shop.
The staff speak English somewhat, but not very well. However, they have those little translation devices if everything fails.
If you want, you can get a stamp card in the design of your grand company upon your visit and use it in both cafés. It also doesn’t expire. You can “use it when you come back in 5 years”, as the nice staff lady told me. It doesn’t hurt to get one, even if only as a nice keepsake.
Also, you can take your placemat, and have it laminated. If you want to do this, be careful not to spill food on it!
Osakas admission fee is 700 yen/person (might vary with holidays etc). Included in this fee are a Jobcoaster of your choice and a random fridge magnet.
The interior of the café is open, not prop heavy and U’ldah themed. Even though it looks less themepark-y than the Tokyo version, for me it felt like it was done with more love – there were handwritten notes everywhere, a wall where you could leave them a message, guestbooks, hand drawn creatures and so on. I really loved the atmosphere. And of course, I wanted to steal the spriggan.
The order process in Osaka is done via QR Code. You scan a QR Code and are redirected to a webapp with the menu. The menu on the webapp is available in Japanese and English. To order, you click on the dish and put it into a shopping basket, that you then order. This part is unfortunately Japanese only (or we didn’t find the English version), so we needed to google lens (your best friend!) the buttons of the app.
You have 90 minutes in the café, your last order is after an hour. Within the hour you can order as much as you like (and can afford).
Osaka had a lot more drinks than Tokyo when we visited: the job-themed drinks and every Scion was also featured in a drink. Those were often more elaborate than the job-themed drinks and contained ice cream or cream (of course Y’shtola was tea though). Most of the food was Osaka exclusive, such as G’rahas Burger and Puddingways pudding, but there were less meals to choose from.
Tokyos admission fee is 1100 yen/person (might vary with holidays etc). Included in this fee are a Jobcoaster of your choice and a free drink (no fridge magnets!).
The venue is rather small, and the interior is more prop-heavy and theme-park-y than Osaka. It is Gridania themed. I felt everything here was a little more done in the name of efficiency, probably because there are more people visiting Tokyo than Osaka.
The order process is similar but not the same as Osaka. First, you choose your drinks that are included in your admission fee. You choose that on a paper that is handed to you by the staff. You will also get a tablet to order and a printed out English menu, as the tablet only has the Japanese menu. But this time you can turn the checkout process to English! The procedure is the same, you click on the dish or drink you want and put it into your shopping basket and when you’re done you can send it to the staff.
Again, your last order is after an hour, and you have 90 minutes in the café. You don’t need to order everything at once. Just use the tablet again if you want more.
While Osaka was more drink-heavy, Tokyo had the greater variety of food, and more fun looking food. However, I found the taste was better in Osaka, though obviously I couldn’t eat the whole menu. I must admit I chose my food more by the looks than the contents. All in all, I’d say they really know their stuff with desserts and sweets.
When you’re done, you take your tablet to the cashier and pay. If you want to buy merch, that is a separate process, so take your time after you paid for the café to shop.
But wait, there’s more: every hour or so (I’m honestly not sure if it’s the same in both, I felt Osaka was every hour and Tokyo was every 90 minutes when the guests changed), there is a gold saucer raffle. Tables are randomly chosen for three prices. The third I have no idea what it is, because the raffle is entirely in Japanese – which is actually pretty funny when 90% of the café are from abroad and everyone has a question mark above their head. A laminated special gold saucer placemat is the second price.
For the winner, they get a HUGE honeytoast with icecream. In Osaka our neighbouring table was eating it when we entered the venue – after they had already eaten. This thing probably has 3k calories, so I’m actually happy we didn’t win it when we were done. In Tokyo the peeps who won it didn’t eat anything else. But it looks really delicious.
So…….is it worth it?
Should you visit the Eorzea Café in Japan? If you’re an FF14 fan – yes! I’m very happy, even if it was coincidently, to have visited both. The food may not have been the best in the world, but it’s a great and unique experience if you love the game as I do. I hope I helped you a little bit with this article!
Special thanks to my fc mates for contributing some of their pictures from the visit a few days later!
