The Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary Cafe was a hot mess, even as a longtime fan
Every Kingdom Hearts fan remembers their first exposure to the series. Mine was reading a rumor about a possible Disney and Squaresoft collaboration project in Electronic Gaming Monthly, a now-digital magazine publication centered around video games. This was my first exposure to crossover products — I loved Final Fantasy, and I had a passing interest in Disney movies like Robin Hood and The Sword and the Stone, so I was excited. My family didn’t have a lot of money however, and also thought video games were a waste of time. As such, I was told to go mow lawns to buy a PlayStation 2 — so I mowed a lot of lawns. I’ve been a fan since then.
When Square Enix announced a 20th Anniversary celebration of Kingdom Hearts, including merchandise and a themed café, I wasn’t really sure if the café part would work out well. After all, the café was only set to be around for a month, and cafés that have a planned end date tend to not have good consumable fare. But this is Square Enix we’re talking about here — the Final Fantasy XIV “Eorzea Café” has some excellent lunches and drinks, after all. Surely this one will work out, right?
If you’ve lived in Japan for any length of time, and also are a huge dork, you start to realize when themed cafés are worth going to and when they aren’t. For those not aware, “themed cafés” refer to cafés centered around a product or franchise — Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Gundam are but a few examples of franchises to get their own café. These “pop-up” cafés tend to not last long and evaporate after a few months, except for the aforementioned Final Fantasy XIV café, which has proved to be popular and profitable enough to stick around for several years.
Pop-up cafés are primarily a
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