A little less than one year after Final Fantasy XI’s limited-time-only XI Years Cafe in Artina popped up in Shinjuku, another Final Fantasy cafe, the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn‘s Eorzea Cafe, is on the Tokyo scene, this time in none other than Akihabara.
In this post I’ll talk about what is reportedly inside and the location.
About Eorzea Cafe
Eorzea Cafe is based on Carline Canopy, a cafe in Gridania in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. The Eorzea Cafe website states that the grand opening was on July 31, 2014, but no word about whether the cafe is only for limited time. As the cafe is based on a cafe in the FFXIV world of Gridania, in addition to looking like Carline Canopy, it also has on display weapons and other items and characters from the games.
The star of Eorzea Cafe is, of course, the tons of Final Fantasy-based food, with 33 dishes and 28 drinks. The food includes noodles inspired by the Leviathan, Bahamut Gigaflare Indian curry, Bentbranch Ranch Chocobo-inspired quiche, Ahriman monburan (chestnut) cake, Cactuar matcha (green tea) ice cream, and, naturally, Moogle honey toast. The drinks include black magic blackcurrant tea, Cactuar juice, Good King Moggle Mog XII’s tropical pineapple juice, and plenty of potions.
They even apparently call the customers “adventurers” (ειΊθ )! If the food and atmosphere aren’t enough, four PCs are set up in the cafe for you to play Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and you’ll be getting an exclusive FFXIV coaster as proof that you got in. According to the Japanese website Famitsu, the producer and director of FFXIV, Mr. Naoki Yoshida, stated at a preview event that he hopes Eorzea Cafe can become a place where both residents of Japan and travelers to Japan can gather.
Related Blogs and Websites
See the blogs and websites below for more photos from Eorzea Cafe. Official FFXIV Developer’s Blog Developers.IO Blog [in Japanese] Famitsu [in Japanese] QKJO [in Japanese] Tabelog Review [in Japanese]
NOTE: The below information about the entry system is old. A good source for the new reservation system is on the blog Rachel and Jun (please also read her blog’s comments for even more updated info). The below information will be left for posterity.
Eorzea Cafe Entry System
First, you have to line up outside the cafe (see below for map and hours), which is housed in Akihabara’s Pasela Resort. I got there at 9:30 am on a Saturday morning and had no trouble getting into the lottery room when they opened at 10:00 am. The staff continues ushering people into the lottery room (which is actually the Three Monkeys Cafe in Pasela Resort) until 10:30 am.
Line Up
Be sure to get there before 10:30 am and preferably even earlier than that; if the lottery room is already full before 10:30 am, they probably won’t let anymore people in. Next, around 10:30 am, the staff explains the lottery system.
One member of each group is to pull a lottery number from a box. Be careful to pull out only one piece of paper. If you pull out two lottery numbers, your chance to enter will be invalidated.
Around 10:45 am, the staff comes around with the lottery box. If you pull a number higher than 50 (this number depends on the day/number of people in groups), you probably won’t get in, so you’re allowed to leave. Reportedly, only about 200 people are allowed in each day. Unluckily, I got 134, so I definitely wasn’t getting in.
Slots
If you are lucky and get a lower number, you will be assigned a time. There are four time slots:
- 11:30 to 13:30
- 14:00 to 16:00
- 16:30 to 18:30
- 19:00 to 22:00
As you can see, time slots 1 through 3 are 120 minutes and time slot 4 is 180 minutes.
When you are in the cafe, you order using an order sheet and can order as many things as you like within your time slot. Billing is based on the order sheets, so if you want to pay together, use the same order sheet.
Entry System Summary
10:00 am Staff starts ushering people outside into lottery room
10:30 am Staff closes lottery room
10:45 am Staff explains lottery system and lets one member of each group pull one lottery number. If you get a low enough number, you will be assigned a time slot and told to come back at your time.
Eorzea Cafe Location, Hours & Map
Place: Eorzea Cafe in Pasela Resort AKIBA Marche Entertainment
Address: 1-1-10 SotoKanda, 2nd Floor, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo [Google Map]
Telephone: 0120-192-759
Hours: 11:30 to 22:00 (see Entry System section for details)
Amazing. I want to go there! I’ll just silently pray there’s still a place like this in Japan when I finish my degree (‘:
I hope it sticks around for a bit too! The producer stated that there are three stages in the development of the cafe (for example, they are going to add a rubber stamp collection system), so it’ll exist at least that long. In any case, there’s still the Square Enix cafe in Shinjuku, which definitely seems to be a permanent thing π