The Ogori Cafe

Cabel Sasser’s account of a Japanese cafe where you order for the person behind you (and get whatever the person in front of you ordered). I love this little twist to the story:

Mike went up to the cafe, slapped down a couple thousand yen (~$25), and ordered a little bit of everything: some ice cream, some snacks, some candy, some drinks, a Japanese horn-of-mysterious-plenty intentionally set up as a shocking surprise for the next lucky customer. (After his order, Mike received single iced coffee.)

As we walked away from the cafe, with just the right amount of delay, we heard an extremely excited “arigato goazimasu!! thank you so much!!” yelled in our direction, from an ecstatic mom and her equally excited young son. They truly appreciated the surprise.

It was so worth it.

We saw some really cool restaurants and cafes when we were in Japan, but nothing like this. I love this idea, though I doubt it’d ever fly here in the U.S.