For many, Tokyo is the world’s most alluring city because it contains businesses that cater to nearly any passion, no matter how niche that might be. There are bars modeled after hospitals, cafes where women dressed as maids serve lonely young nerds…and now there’s one for those who want to indulge their passion for paper.
The 60-seat Bunbougu [stationery] café in Tokyo’s Omotesando district serves up sketchbooks, sticky notes, stationery, as well as colored pencils and other implements to allow patrons’ creative imaginations to run wild. After paying a one-time membership fee of about $7, customers are given keys that unlock various drawers around the café. It is here where the notebooks, pens and other items are kept. Only open less than a year, the café already boasts 3,000 members, about 70% of them women in their 20s and 30s.
Currently, the owners are trying to interest papermakers into holding special events there to introduce new products to a clientele who highly value paper products.
