Editor Coffee How: A Tokyo Café That Won't Let You Leave

The Manuscript Writing Café in Tokyo's Koenji area opened on April 7, 2022, and serves writers who cannot finish their work. Guests reserve in advance, write their goal and start time on a card, and staff check progress every hour. Nobody leaves until the goal is met, and guests can pick mild, normal, or heavy pressure to be pushed.

The fee is 300 yen per hour, and coffee is self-service, with outside food allowed. Seats include power outlets, USB ports, and high-speed Wi-Fi. For anyone who writes about coffee or edits copy, the setup is a practical answer to editor coffee how questions: a paid, timed room with checkpoints and no early exit.

Procrastination is probably one of the most familiar "chronic ailments" for today's working professionals. In the Koenji area of Tokyo, Japan, there is a special café called The Manuscript Writing Café (原稿執筆カフェ), which opened on April 7, 2022, and is designed specifically for writers. To enter, you need to make a reservation in advance and write down your work goal and start time on a small card. Staff follow up on your progress every hour, and you are not allowed to leave until you complete your goal. You can even choose to be subjected to mild, normal, or heavy pressure to hurry up. The seats are equipped with power outlets, USB ports, and high-speed Wi-Fi. Coffee is self-service, and you can bring your own food, but you are charged 300 yen per hour. This café previously also ran a "Video Editing Café," and the owner is the same person. For working professionals who need to focus on meeting deadlines, this kind of environment is both comfortable and carries a moderate sense of tension.

Speaking of procrastination, I bet quite a few friends have a bellyful of complaints to pour out.

For example, the author of some work you're following is a severe procrastinator—monthly updates already count as diligent, and when you run into someone who updates only once a year, the readers following along are the ones truly suffering.

So is procrastination really incurable? Of course not. There is a café in Tokyo, Japan, that specifically targets this kind of procrastinating crowd. Until you finish your goal, they won't even let you out the door. Does that already sound a little tempting?

This shop is located in the Koenji area of Tokyo, and it's called The Manuscript Writing Café (原稿執筆カフェ, The Manuscript Writing Café). It officially opened on April 7, 2022. Judging by its appearance alone, it looks no different from an ordinary café. But interestingly, once you walk in, you can't sip your coffee as leisurely as you would in other cafés.

It also doesn't accept just anyone. According to the operator of this manuscript writing café on Twitter, the shop is open to all kinds of writers, but the number of seats inside is limited, so if you want to go, you must make a reservation in advance.

In addition, this café has also set three rules that customers need to follow:

1. When entering, customers must write down their work goal and the time they plan to start working on the small card provided by the shop.

2. The manager will come by every hour to follow up on the customer's task progress.

3. Before completing the goal they set for themselves, customers cannot leave the café.

Customers can even request on the card that the staff apply a certain degree of pressure to them when checking their progress.

-The options in the box roughly mean the degree of pressure applied when urging: mild, normal, heavy

Although every customer who walks in with a deadline is there to "face their tribulation," the working conditions here are not exactly harsh. All seats are equipped with power outlets and USB charging ports, as well as high-speed Wi-Fi. Coffee is self-service, so you can drink as much as you want, and customers are also allowed to bring their own food and drinks. After all, if your stomach isn't full, how would you have the energy to work?

Reading this, some people might think: with conditions this good, where does the pressure come from? Even if you sit there all day without writing a single word, you can still feel perfectly justified. Thinking that way would be a mistake. This café charges by time, at 300 yen per person per hour (1 RMB ≈ 19.7 yen). If you want to procrastinate all day, you'd better first ask your wallet whether it agrees.

At this point, does everyone feel this shop looks a bit familiar, yet can't quite remember where you've seen it? That's right—this café's theme last November was "Video Editing Café," specifically keeping an eye on procrastinating editors, who could only leave after completing their tasks.

And the owner—still the same owner. It feels like during your three years in high school, even though you changed classes, the one staring at you through the window during class was still that same dean of students. "Stop all that fidgeting and get to work!"

The business decision to charge by the hour at the café can be said to be quite clever. After all, there are plenty of procrastinators. Although working alone at home is quiet with no one to disturb you, the comfort of home will more or less make people lazy, and work efficiency suffers as a result.

Some netizens even commented that with The Manuscript Writing Café's rule that "you cannot leave until you complete your task," once you enter the shop, you might never get out for the rest of your life.

Now there is actually this kind of café that helps urge you to finish your work. The environment is comfortable, there's nothing to distract you, and it can also create a moderately tense atmosphere. For working professionals with procrastination, it's simply like a tailor-made ideal workplace. Seeing this, I kind of want to crowdfund a bit and send my favorite authors off to face their tribulation!

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Image source: Himanainu Studio's YOUTUBE channel, TWITTER

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.