aiseki cafe top

Remember that time you spotted that cute guy/girl at the cafe? Remember how badly you wanted to go over to them, make a witty comment, sit down and have them laugh and gaze into your eyes? And remember how they left before you actually did anything?

Well no longer! Aiseki Cafe in Ginza has the answer. When you come in you’re shown to a table with only two seats: one for a man and one for a woman. You chat, flirt, sip coffee and eat cakes, and then after 30 minutes you get rotated to the next person to repeat the process until you’ve found someone to make the sacred connection with: sharing your cell number.

Oh, and if you’re a woman, great news! You get unlimited coffee and cake for only 500 yen, one-fifth of the price for men. Cha-ching!

Aiseki Cafe (meaning “Sharing a Table With Someone You Don’t Know Cafe” or “Blind Date Cafe”) is located in Ginza, Tokyo. It’s owned by the same company that runs the upscale Lohas Ginza cafe, and it was established with the purpose of giving people a place to meet potential partners all day long.

Unlike other speed dating programs, Aiseki Cafe is open all day with no reservations necessary, meaning you can stop in at any time to find the potential love of your life. You just come in, quickly fill out a form with some key information about yourself so they can verify you’re not a stalker, order your drink or food, and then you’re seated at one of the two-people tables.

The men are rotated every half an hour (the women stay seated), so you don’t have to spend too long putting up with somebody if you’re not hitting it off. What’s more, each seat comes equipped with a tablet fully loaded with music, books, manga and more for patrons to use as conversation stimulators. Or as a way of killing the silence until their awkward 30 minutes are up…

▼ The interior of the cafe, in all its matchmaking glory.

aiseki cafe tablesTwitter(@e_deai_japan)

When it comes to how much the cafe costs, it’s really not bad… if you’re a woman.

While ladies can stay as long as they like, get unlimited drinks and a slice of cake for just 500 yen (US$4), gents are required to pay 2,500 yen ($20) for an hour of unlimited drinks and a cake. Men are welcome to stay a little longer if they like, but it’ll cost them 1,000 yen ($8) per subsequent hour. That’s one way to ensure the place isn’t packed with single men all waiting to talk to the one available girl, we suppose!

Aiseki Cafe advertises itself as a place where you can “casually meet other people.” In essence that’s true, but it seems to us that the cafe’s main clientele is going to be a little more than “casual”. After all, meeting someone here isn’t going to be like crashing into someone outside a department store on Christmas Eve, suddenly locking eyes with them as you scrabble around trying to pick up your various parcels; people are coming to this cafe in the hope of meeting that special someone. Still, as long as no one gets escorted out of the building by security, yelling that their table-partner didn’t give them their cell phone number, then maybe it’ll work out.

So what do you think? If you’re single, 20 or older, and happen to live in the Tokyo area, then check it out! Let us know if you meet the man/woman of your dreams, or if you get kicked out for being too suave and breaking too many hearts.

Source: Aiseki Cafe via PR Times
Featured/top image: Twitter(@gw226950)
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