Near Ninomiya Shopping Street in Kobe, in a quiet corner, a brick-floored entryway welcomes you in. This is CAFE+ — born from the hair salon owner Takai’s parents ran here for nearly four decades, lovingly renovated into something new.

“This place was my parents’ salon. Right here. They ran it for about 38 years.”

Next door, her father still cuts hair to this day.

The tiny salon beside CAFE+, called “Plus α,” is more than just a neighboring business to Takai. It is the living history of her family — a place she watched her parents pour themselves into since childhood.

She attended elementary and middle school right here in Ninomiya, growing up watching her parents work. The energy of those days, conversations with customers, the sound of scissors — all of it is soaked into these walls.

The ceiling, the brick, the windows — as much as could be kept was kept. The traces of that era speak quietly of a family’s history.

“I want people to leave with something that’s added a little something to their day. To feel a bit more positive.”

What Takai wants to give people in this space is a moment of reset — a shift in mood brought about by a single cup of coffee. Time you carve out for yourself in the middle of a flowing day. And the belief that those small moments, stacked together, shape the person you become. With that in mind, she brews coffee again today.

Days of Diving In Without Fear

“Fear? I’ve just never had it. I don’t really know why.”

Takai laughs as she says she’s never felt afraid to throw herself into something new.

“The excitement always wins. And I figure — if I fail, I won’t die, right? That’s sort of my baseline. They say regret from not trying is worse than regret from failing. And I just can’t hold back.”

After high school, she joined a well-known hotel on Rokko Island, working across front desk, bar, and kitchen roles.

“Back then, kitchen staff had this terrifying reputation — especially in hotel kitchens. It was a really intimidating world.”

A strict environment. But Takai found her way in. She picked up recipes, helped out at the bar, and absorbed everything she could.

Her interest in working in a neighborhood setting led her to a café-bar in Kitano, and at 20 she was put in charge of a pop-up café, racing through every day. Nights spent bar-hopping across Sannomiya built her a network that spread all over the city.

When the owner of that café asked if she’d buy the whole business, she wanted to say yes — but her parents were firmly against it.

“If my parents are opposed, I should probably stop. Even if I wanted to do it, if there are people against it, I’ll back off.”

After that, she kept saying “sure, I’ll try” whenever someone invited her somewhere new — a French chef role, a wine bar, insurance sales. She jumped in each time. And somehow, she ended up at a large café in Namba.

“We’d make an enormous number of café lattes in a single day. That place was incredibly busy.”

Under a head barista who competed in competitions, she trained exhaustively — latte art, everything coffee-related. When that barista eventually went independent, Takai was part of the founding team, building a new café from the ground up, handling both food and coffee.

Then came the sudden news of her mother’s death.

A New Story in an Inherited Place

Her mother had been perfectly fine the day before. When she was suddenly gone, Takai faced the question of what to do with this place left behind. She rushed back to Kobe from Osaka and thought it through.

“If they’d let me renovate the space, I thought — maybe I’ll turn it into a café.”

She got the landlord’s approval, and took the plunge. She put up a wall inside to create a small, single-person salon space where her father could still work. He’d been saying he might just quit — but she knew that if he did, he might never get his energy back.

“Even once a month is fine. Even just a little bit.”

Her father’s bookings only come in maybe once a month now, so she also rents the space to freelance hairdressers. When she found out that typical salon rentals take a percentage of revenue on top of rent, she thought: “Then why not just rent the space here?”

Ceiling, brick floor, windows — she kept whatever she could, holding on to the character of this place.

The year after opening, she gave birth. She worked with her child on her back. Now she’s the mother of an eight-year-old and four-year-old twins. With the support of long-serving staff, she has been able to keep this place going.

“I’m committed now — I can’t close it. There’s this strange sense of duty, like I have to protect it.”

A Family, Each in Their Own Way

This place has the Takai family woven deeply into it.

Her younger sister is a leather artisan. She’d originally been doing graphic design in Tokyo, but came back to Kobe after their mother passed and began working with leather. She got her start in a small corner of CAFE+, was selected for Kobe Selection, and now sells at department stores around the country and appears in media. These days she runs her own shopfront in Minatogawa.

“She started with cowhide, but now she also works with deer leather. There’s this idea of dealing with problem wildlife — some of it becomes food, but that’s really only a small fraction. Most of it gets killed and just left in the mountains, piling up. She wanted to make use of that. To properly take care of it.”

The coasters in the café were made by her sister.

And her older brother is a fish wholesaler, supplying to the market. When she was thinking about what to name the café —

“I was going to call it CAFE+, so he said, ‘Then I’ll call mine Osakana Plus!’ He decided in three seconds.”

“I was genuinely shocked. Are you okay with such a cute name? Like, what even is Osakana Plus? Shouldn’t it be something like Nanantara Suisan?”

From “Plus α,” to “CAFE+,” and then “Osakana Plus.” The whole family has gathered under the same ”+” banner.

The Place Is the Star, She’s the Stagehand

“I’m not attached to it being my vision. It doesn’t have to be me — it just has to be here.”

Ask Takai what kind of café she wants CAFE+ to be, and she answers with a laugh. What matters most to her isn’t “expressing herself” — it’s “keeping this space alive.”

Rather than packing in ambitions, she works backwards from reality. No gas line, a child to raise. Within those constraints, she landed on coffee and baguette sandwiches.

“Less about what I want to do, more about what I can sustain in this space.”

Where French Training Meets Barista Craft

Baguette sandwiches lined up along the counter. A crisp crust. Generous roast pork with real presence, balanced by the sweet and gentle acidity of an onion sauce.

Atop a velvety microfoam, a softly drawn rabbit in latte art. The days of training at that Osaka café settle quietly into every cup she makes.

Adding a ”+” to Everyday Life, Right Here

What Takai knows for certain: the invisible power of a single cup of coffee.

“Drinking a really good coffee — it’s genuinely different. Hard to explain, but your mood shifts, your whole vibe after is different. People might not notice it consciously, but it’s absolutely there. You feel better.”

Days that just pass by don’t mean much if they’re only passing. What matters is time you create for yourself. And those small moments, accumulated, build the person you’re becoming — that’s how Takai sees it.

That is the meaning of the ”+” she inherited from her parents along with the name of this place.

She once raced through hotels, French kitchens, and barista training, following her instincts wherever they led. All of that now flows into protecting the place her parents left behind.

“Coffee improves your mood — so just drink one first, at least.”

The cup Takai brews today adds a small ”+” to someone’s ordinary day, just as it did yesterday.

CAFE+ (Cafe Plus)

📍 Kansai Building 103, 4-7-9 Kotonocho, Chuo-ku, Kobe, Hyogo (near Ninomiya Shopping Street)
🚃 Approx. 3 min walk from JR Sannomiya Station
⏰ Hours: 11:00–18:00
🗓 Closed: Tuesdays
📱 Instagram: @cafe_pls

View CAFE+ on Tabelog