Fender opens a second, more unplugged Shimokitazawa cafe

Open from July 3, the Fender Cafe Shimokitazawa hopes to be just another musically inclined entry to the neighborhood's web of live houses. Despite a renovated train station and a slow creep of new commercial complexes and higher rents over the past decade, Tokyo’s Shimokitazawa neighborhood has maintained its reputation as the city’s hub for indie music. On any given night, emerging musicians and veteran bands alike are constant fixtures in the dozens of live houses (the Japanese term for live music venues) that dot Shimokita, as the locals call it. And from July 3, the neighborhood gets another venue with a musical bent: Fender Cafe Shimokitazawa. Following the 2023 opening of the flagship Fender store and its basement-level cafe in the trendy Harajuku area, Fender Cafe Shimokitazawa is the American musical instrument manufacturer’s second physical storefront in Japan and its first standalone cafe. Located around the corner from the iconic Shelter live house and with a facade featuring the silhouetted headstock of Fender’s iconic Stratocaster guitar, the cafe is an attempt to integrate California coffee culture with Shimokitazawa’s cultural and historical significance for Japan’s musicians, says Ippei Takahashi, Fender’s marketing director of Asia.