What is the difference between a kissaten and a café?

A kissaten is a traditional Japanese tea room and coffee shop, with roots in Taisho-era Ginza, usually owner-run, and built around tea, coffee and Japanese-Western light meals. A café is the later, more modern format — brighter, faster, and more often part of a chain.

What do kissaten serve?

Tea and coffee at the centre, with yoshoku — Japanese-Western cooking. Classic items include Naporitan spaghetti, omurice, mixed sandwiches, and Showa-era desserts such as pudding and cream soda.

Is Yummy a kissaten or an udon shop?

Both. Yummy Kissaten (Yummy Japanese Western Cuisine) and Yummy Sanuki Handmade Udon are the same shop at the same address — kissaten cooking and tea on one side, Sanuki and Inaniwa handmade udon on the other.

Japanese institutions

What is a kissaten?

A kissaten (喫茶店) is not simply the Japanese word for a café. It is a distinct kind of establishment — with its own menu, its own pace and its own history.

Kissaten vs café

	Kissaten	Café
Era	Roots in Taisho-era Ginza	Later, more modern
Space	Quiet, dimmer, deliberate seating and music	Bright, open
Ownership	Usually owner-run	More often chains
Centre of gravity	Tea and coffee, plus Japanese-Western light meals	Coffee, lighter food
Pace	Built for sitting a while	Faster turnover

A café sells coffee. A kissaten sells time.

What kissaten serve

What makes a kissaten distinctive is that its food is yoshoku (洋食) — Western cooking as it was absorbed and reworked in Japan, rather than European dishes reproduced as they are.

Category	Examples
Yoshoku mains	Naporitan spaghetti, omurice
Light bites	Mixed sandwiches
Showa-era desserts	Pudding, cream soda
Drinks	Coffee, tea, matcha, hojicha

Why Yummy is called a kissaten

Because it genuinely is one.

Its English name — Yummy Japanese Western Cuisine — says so directly: "Japanese Western" is yoshoku.

And since tea is the centre of a kissaten, the matcha and hojicha here come from Nishimura Banchaya Honten, a Kyoto tea house founded in 1922 — served at under HK$20.

One shop, two names

Yummy Kissaten and Yummy Sanuki Handmade Udon are the same shop at the same address. The two names describe two faces of one menu — kissaten cooking and tea on one side, and Sanuki and Inaniwa handmade udon — two of Japan's three great udon — on the other.

Where

Address: Shop 326-327, Level 3, Plaza Hollywood, 3 Lung Poon Street, Diamond Hill
Phone: 2322 9189
Per person: Around HK$80–100
Getting there: MTR Diamond Hill station, directly connected to Plaza Hollywood

Two of Japan's Three Great Udon

Sanuki vs Inaniwa, and the history of Inaniwa udon.

Uji Matcha under HK$20

From a Kyoto tea house founded in 1922.

Sources

Wikipedia — 喫茶店
zh.wikipedia.org
Japan National Tourism Organization — "Coffee culture in Japan: kissaten"
japan.travel