Cabel Saasser brings word of a mysterious cafe that he recently experienced in Kashiwa in Japan. Located inside the Urban Design Center Kashiwa-no-ha, the Ogori cafe looks innocuous enough, but holds a surprise in store for its patrons. In a nutshell, you get what the person before you ordered, and the next person gets what you ordered. Thus, if you’re in on the game, you can choose to be either a generous benefactor, and treat those that come after you – or try your luck at being cheap. Either way, it’s an interesting experiment that explores surprise, kindness and encourages interactions.
Cabel describes a scene from the cafe:
As I sat down to enjoy my surprise Appletizer, loving this insane idea and wondering what would happen if you tried it in America, a Japanese woman approached the cafe. Since she could actually speak Japanese, she could read the large sign at the front and, fortunately or unfortunately, got advanced warning of what she was in for. Before making a final decision on what to order, she quietly snuck up to me to try to ask me what I had ordered, knowing that it would be her unwavering refreshment destiny. The staff put a quick stop to her trickery, and I didn’t answer.
Of course, regardless of what she ordered, she got the orange juice I ordered a few minutes earlier. But here’s one of the moments that make this experiment cool: she actually chose orange juice, just like I did. So she got what she wanted. Ogori cafe synchronicity!
Before we left, there was one last thing hat had to be done.
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.
Cabel’s Blog LOL: “Kashiwa Mystery Cafe”
[via Offsetting Behaviour]
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Oh! What an excellent idea! it is. But for it you have to be a little patient and benevolent too.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:54 am
In the UK, everyone would just get the cheapest thing
October 6th, 2009 at 7:20 am
what’s the point — is it just whimsy for whimsy’s sake?
October 6th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Love it! Such a true analogy of life…
October 6th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Neat idea! Is this permanent, or just a pop-up experiment?
October 9th, 2009 at 1:29 am
Cool how they give you that little card that identifies the person who “treated” you, too… wonder if that cuts down on cheapskate tendencies?
“The person who got you the [dish] is a [male/female] in [color] clothes.”
October 9th, 2009 at 1:33 am
This is such a cool idea!!! in this day and age when all electronic devices under the guise of social networking are actually driving us all towards isolated lives, a simple human machanism can connect us all so deeply…. be it surprise, excitement, anger, disapppointment!! great stuff, and more of this is needed arouond the world. :-)
October 9th, 2009 at 3:06 am
Damn, your lives must be boring. Thank you, but I dont need a freakshow cafe hippy art-exhibit cafe to bring a little excitement into my life. Perhaps we could expend the effort trying to rid the world of religion so that we can finally live in peace?
October 9th, 2009 at 4:43 am
What a post…..mailed it to all my friends…..Cool how they give you that little card that identifies the person who “treated” you, too… wonder if that cuts down on cheapskate tendencies?
October 9th, 2009 at 9:13 am
What a post…..mailed it to all my friends…..Cool how they give you that little card that identifies the person who “treated” you, too… wonder if that cuts down on cheapskate tendencies?
October 9th, 2009 at 9:13 am
What a post…..mailed it to all my friends…..book marked it for my self….Cool how they give you that little card that identifies the person who “treated” you, too… wonder if that cuts down on cheapskate tendencies?
October 9th, 2009 at 9:15 am
I just read this story to my daughters, 5 & 7, and they were as charmed by it as I was. Very sweet.
October 10th, 2009 at 1:47 pm