Most Digital Nomads will go to Tokyo or Kyoto for coffee shops. And our plan wasn't to spend a day in Osaka to work remotely. But we ended up on the wrong train, chatted too long and before we realised, we were half way through to Osaka instead of Kyoto.

We had the option to spent another half hour to get back to Kyoto or just continue on the train and work from Osaka instead. We opted for the latter and were browsing for places to work from while on the train. These are the places we came across and also checked out while there:

Seattle coffee

This coffee shop is situated in the ground floor of a huge office building. If you go there during Sakura season, you also get a very nice view of cherry blossoms. Sorry, on this picture the zoom is on the coffee, not the blossoms, but you'll get the idea:

There are plugs on the larger tables and plenty of people also working on their laptop. And you don’t feel forced to keep ordering a new drink. However, the wifi logs you out after every hour. You won’t have to consume more items, but you’ll still need to log back in, which is annoying when you’re half way through a task. And you get a maximum of 4 hours per day.

I ordered an oat cappuccino, my friend ordered the roasted tea latte (which he wasn’t a fan of) and a chicken sandwich which wasn’t impressive. But food aside, for getting stuff done, it was a nice and quiet work environment.

Wifi Speed at Seattle Coffee in Osaka — 140 Kbps

Once we reached the 4 hours, we grabbed some lunch and went to find the next place to work from.

Heys cafe and CUE cafe

After lunch, we walked to Heys/Cue cafe. There are 2 pins on google maps with different reviews, but they’re both technically the same place. One of them is an actual co-working space, the other one a coffee shop that’s part of the co-working space.

It looked very nice and quiet, the co-working itself was nicely designed. However, there was a 1,000 Yen fee per 2 hours of work. Which wasn’t worth it for us, we would’ve rather had coffee for that price and after working from Seattle coffee, we knew that it was possible to get wifi and a decent place for less than that. Also, we’re in one of the biggest cities in Japan, we knew there were alternatives.

But if I would’ve stayed in Osaka, it’s definitely a place I would’ve considered if they offer a weekly or monthly pass for their co-working. So if you’re in the area, go check it out.

CUE Workspace & heys

Side note

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Streamer Cafe

This place showed up on google maps and it looked very promising. But when we arrived, it was extremely busy and there were no spare seats. And even if there was, I don’t think we would’ve stayed for long because of the noise.

There were plenty of people working, the background music was mixed with the sound of people that came for a coffee chat, not just a work session.

Personally, I prefer places where there is a higher ratio of guests with laptops than guests without laptops. I know, that’s not the purpose of coffeeshops, but I feel guilty if I stay for hours, occupying a seat, when it’s busy and people are waiting to grab a seat to chat with their friends.

If you’re in the area, I think it’d be a great place to work from on quiet days. If you don’t mind background noise and got good noise cancelling headphones, you might like working from here. The coffee looked great and the fact that it was busy probably means the wifi is good too.

Streamer Coffee Company Shinsaibashi

We got there around 2pm, so maybe it was just the time of day. So if you come early (or late) you might be able to have a good work session from here.

Rocks Cafe

This place had a very quiet atmosphere, friendly staff and great coffee. To our surprise, it wasn’t very busy. The wifi wasn’t the fastest but fast enough for what we had to do.

We ordered some Iced Americano which was decent but the cookie cake we ordered with it was absolutely delicious! Make sure you order that when you get there.

This cake was much better than it looked!

Rocks Cafe Osaka — Wifi speed 64Kbps

Rocks cafe was quiet, both in the footfall but also in background noise. There were plug sockets too.

It was raining heavily when we left and when asking the staff, they gave us an umbrella which we took all the way back to our accommodation in Kyoto. We felt a bit bad for not returning it but later found out supposedly it’s a thing in Japan: People are very helpful. Someone even told me that you can take any of those clear umbrellas and return them elsewhere. Not sure how common and accepted that behaviour is though.

Only one day

We’ve only spent a day in Osaka. There are most likely a ton of more coffeeshops to work from. But if I’d go back, I’d work again from Seattle coffeeshop and Rocks Cafe. And return the umbrella.

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