We Visited the Idyllic Bookstore in Tokyo That Requires a $15 Cover Charge – Is it Worth it?

You may very well balk at the thought of a bookstore with an entrance fee. After all, isn’t one of life’s greatest free pleasures a peruse in a book shop?

So we book-lovers may have thought, but with many physical bookstores in trouble because of competition from the much cheaper online options, the classic business model may have to change. Bunkitsu in Tokyo has one solution. To even enter the store, regardless of whether or not you buy anything, customers must pay a cover charge of 1620 yen (nearly $15).

Bunkitsu, Roppongi's Readers' Paradise

After paying the paying at the reception, customers are given a badge which grants free rein of the place. On the surface, the price seems a bit steep. What are they charging for exactly? The privilege of possibly buying something from them? But there’s much more to it than that.

The cover charge has basically allowed the company behind Bunkitsu to create a reader’s paradise.

Firstly, you can stay for as long as you want. There’s plenty of seating, and it seems many customers use it as a workspace, taking advantage of the free wifi for hours on end. Visitors are also entitled to unlimited coffee and tea. You don’t have to buy the books either, you can sit and read them until your heart’s content. All the books can be taken and read anywhere around the store, but they are also all for sale.

This isn’t just a usual bookstore peruse. This is like a mega-peruse, part book shop, part library, part coffee shop, part shared office. If you take all this into consideration, suddenly the cover charge seems quite reasonable.

The interior utilises open concrete and monochrome for a sleek and minimalist design, the simple interior draws attention to the books, which strike the perfect balance between ordered displays and chaotic piles. Certain nooks ooze cosiness, a prerequisite for a good read.

Of course, being in Japan the books are all in Japanese. Well, I did manage to find one in English (a collection of sonnets by William Shakespeare) and a thorough search might unearth more. But basically, they’re all in Japanese. However, there’s a whole range of books on architecture, art and photography and other visual-heavy disciplines that anyone can enjoy looking at.

It’s an innovative approach to fighting back at the online onslaught against the high street, but it works well in Japan, a country which already has manga and comic cafes where you can pay to stay there and read. A book shop with a cover charge is actually quite an easy sell over here. It remains to be seen if this very Japanese idea could be implemented overseas.