Just left after 3 months there, and struggled to find places to work from that aren't Starbucks, few and far between. I frequented a couple Jingumae spots like the Roastery and Suzu Cafe, Mellow Brown in Jiyugauka, Fuglen in Yoyogi, and a lot of cool or charming spots that had no outlets or wifi but were OK to work from, like Brooklyn Parlor in Shinjuku or some spots around Kichijoji I liked (and of course, Blue Bottle too). Nakameguro had nice little cafes but I never worked from there.

Overall Tokyo is not a digital nomad, coffee-shop working friendly city (or at least not like other major international cities), which was both surprising and disappointing, for me.

EDIT - I'll add the co working spaces I dropped by were all simply terrible. I only went to a few, Open Source Cafe, and Jelly Jelly, and then gave up. I wish I had Tokyocheapo's list at the time. One of them was playing pop music over a speaker system to everyone who was working... I mean, seriously?

Have you tried public libraries? I worked sometimes in one where I was staying. It was pretty silent, with a table to put the computer, and there was a wifi there - which I didn't want to try, I went there to be in a place without Internet, but I know the wifi was available. Also completelt free. The only downside is that they didn't let visitors plug their laptops, so your will need to have a good autonomy.

Wow, it sounds like you had bad luck finding places.

I find Tokyo 10x better than SF or LA for places to hang. In SF or LA they are either all full, or you have to by stuff every 2 hours which makes me fat, plus I can't leave anything out so after a coffee or two I need to use the restroom and I lose my space because you can't leave a notebook unattended in the USA. The only exception is maybe the Workspace Cafe in SF.

In Tokyo there's co-working spaces everywhere, they are cheap (especially when you take into account free drinks). Have worked from plenty of starbucks as well, except on weekends when they're full. The one behind roppongi hills that's open till 4am has been great. The one at the corner of Meiji-dori and Omotesando on the 6th floor is huge and been great too. Just don't go on a weekend / holiday.

I'd be curious to know which cities you think are good. I traveled to a bunch of cities in Europe last year and my luck was like yours in Tokyo. I looked up places, checked them out, all were horrible. But I was only in each city for a week or less so maybe I just failed to find anything like you did in Tokyo.

> plus I can't leave anything out so after a coffee or two I need to use the restroom and I lose my space because you can't leave a notebook unattended in the USA.

I have a beat up moleskine with some random doodles that I carry around for exactly this reason. Need to use the restroom at a coffee shop? Leave my disposable moleskine and a pencil on the table to claim the spot. If someone jacks the table, easy to ask them what they did with your notebook.

Works in: Bushwick, Denver, Seattle, SF, Austin

I'm not disputing Tokyo is full of Starbucks. Judge me if you want but I just won't work from Starbucks. (For the record, the Starbucks at Daikanyama in the T-Complex is actually very cool and is worth a mention; didn't like the Starbucks you mentioned much, which I also worked from a little, by necessity... also if you're in Roppongi go work from the art museum cafe, or for a great spot open late, there's a stylish lounge/cafe in Shibuya a block by Zanmai Sushi open until 7am, really can't think of the name)

You would have to list names of specific places, apart from the ones I listed, because I just don't believe it's a matter of me not looking enough. You would also have to list names of co working spaces too that are good, because as I mentioned, the ones I went to were quite bad.

For SF, I have a map of ~20 hacker friendly coffee shops I frequent there. There were maybe 4-5 coffee shops in all of Tokyo of a comparable standard. (Fukuoka, even Sapporo, had better spots than Tokyo for laptop workers.)

Shanghai is an example of a city that is actually 10x better for working from cafes (if you use a VPN).

Well I think you will have to actually list some places if you want to argue it is hacker friendly :)... just saw this thread, in Tokyo myself. I don't think it's particularly hacker friendly, cafe wise, lack of wifi, etc.

I would be thrilled if you would list a good cafe or two, as I am always on the hunt.

Vietnam is in general an amazing place to work from cafes. Free WiFi is standard, most cafes serve a decent breakfast for less than $2, and many of them are quite elegant and beautifully appointed. The biggest downside is that everybody smokes here so if you're sensitive to cigarette smoke you might have a hard time finding a seat that isn't close to a smoker.

Any city in particular you'd recommend in Vietnam for cafe workers? I might be heading that way soon.

Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City) is the best place if you want to meet other tech people, but I find it a little too hectic to stay here too long. I prefer the smaller towns like Nha Trang or Hoi An if I really want to knuckle down and get things done.

Ho Chi Minh City (District 1) One of my favorite hobo working cafe cities

+1 Mellow Brown — good coffee, and open from 8am, rare in Tokyo; also, free wifi (requires checking email for first use, though.)

+1 Fuglen — gets crowded though, and is quite small.

Thanks for the tip on Nakameguro lounge. I live rather close to there. Any other suggestions?

I spent most of my time at FAB Cafe in Shibuya. They have WiFi, 3D printing, and laser cutters, but I'm looking for somewhere new.

This weekend I discovered Alaska, a cafe in Nakameguro. The coffee was great, although my latte was price-y at 700yen. But food seemed to be around the 1,000 yen mark and it wasn't busy enough for me to feel guilty about hogging a table.

I highly recommend too. Quiet in the afternoon until 19.00 when they turn the volume up. Plus their banana shake is amazing!

Is the lack of free WiFi due to the coverage of WiFi hotspots run by phone companies there, which require an account?

Any cafe which wants to make free WiFi available can trivially make free WiFi available. I believe that most which choose to not do this are making the considered product/marketing decision that they do not want long stays from laptop users. They want to turn those tables quickly because $4 to $6 coffees only make Tokyo commercial rents if you sell a lot of them.

> They want to turn those tables quickly because $4 to $6 coffees only make Tokyo commercial rents if you sell a lot of them.

Then how does Starbucks make money then ? Most of the clients in Starbucks in Japan come for a drink with their computer or iPad and stay an hour or even more without consuming anything else - and they have their own internet access via tethering anyway. Yet Starbucks makes huge profits.

100 million yen per year per store of sales, or roughly 500 tickets per day, is how Starbucks stays afloat.

A variety of reasons, but I suspect a big one is vested interests from paid wifi services. For years it's been the norm to see a cafe full of people all using their own wifi dongles.

Does the free lunch offer extend to the (cheapo) author? :D

Sure! I'm going to convince you to change the name of the publication to tokyochargemore but you'll get a free meal out of it.

I dunno, I went indie-gamedev a few months ago and I've done nearly all my work in St. Marcs, Ueshimas, Tullys, Forests and so forth. Most have power outlets in at least some seats, and on weekdays they never really get crowded enough to care about space (at least not where I am a few minutes outside of Shibuya). The downside is wifi, but the fact that I work better without it is half the reason I'm at a cafe!

With that said for non-chain places with wifi, Streamer Cafe was a short walk from Nakameguro and was a nice place to spend an afternoon. Timeout cafe (Ebisu above liquid room) was reasonable as well, modulo a sales guy using it for an office.

Would be great to sponge a lunch off you someday ;)