Before the Coffee Gets Cold

The constraints of time travel are crucial to the characters’ experiences in the café. The strict rules that govern their journeys to the past and future limit the kind of experiences they can have and yet do not prohibit the experience of changing one’s outlook on life for the better.

The most instinctive reason for wanting to travel back in time would be to go back and change the situations and conversations that have led to an unsatisfactory present. This is café newcomer Fumiko’s hope when she initially learns about the time travel seat, as she hopes to go back to the conversation with her boyfriend and persuade him to stay with her instead of going to America. However, Kazu informs her that even if she goes back in time and tells Goro her feelings, the present will remain unchanged. At first, a crestfallen Fumiko thinks that not being able to change the present “defeats the purpose” of going back and that this rule contradicts the time travel stories she already knows (12). Ultimately, she chooses to time travel anyway.

Fumiko’s sentiment is shared by a magazine article about the café with the polemic title “Uncovering Truth Behind ‘Time-Traveling Café’ Made Famous by Urban Legend” (14).