Pop-Up Cafe That Supports Stutterers Makes Rounds in Japan

Learn about a new and unique popup cafe that aims to employ and advocate for people with speech impediments in Japan.

By Nyri Bakkalian

A Japanese traveling popup cafe aiming to employ and advocate for people with speech impediments is making its first stop in the Tohoku region on April 2nd in Sendai’s Tsutsujigaoka district. Read on to learn more about the Chū Cafe and its mission.

A Cafe with a Mission

Picture: Table-K / PIXTA(ピクスタ)

The Chū Cafe — in full Chūmon ni Jikan ga Kakaru Cafe (A Cafe Where Orders Take Some Time; official English name: Slow Order Cafe) — is the brainchild of Okumura Arisa. Living with dysphemia herself, her childhood dream was to work in a cafe. She wrote a letter to her future self, asking if her dream had come true yet, and left it in a drawer in her parents’ home.

Many years later, when Okumura returned to her parents’ home as an adult, she rediscovered the letter. Okumura also lived outside Japan for a time, in Australia, which…