Cafe Taiyou-no-tou Namba City (Namba)

Cafe Taiyou-no-tou Namba City services coffee, tea, cream sodas, healthy meals, an extensive menu of cakes and other pastries and sweets, a kids’ menu (including baby food), with toddler-friendly floor seating options.

Cafe Taiyou-no-tou’s Namba City location © Angelino Donnachaidh

Named in honor of Osaka Prefecture’s famous modern art statue Taiyou no Tou (“Tower of the Sun”) erected in the northern suburb of Suita for the 1970’s World Fair and a beloved regional landmark ever since, Cafe Taiyou-no-tou embodies the same spirit of lighthearted surreal, artsy, and funky fun behind the statue.

It’s also a great place for a healthy lunch with whole-grain rice or some generously decadent and aesthetically plated cakes or other sweet treats. Its Namba City location also offers great child-friendly seating options with a small selection of toys and games to keep little ones occupied, and it sells its own apparel line on racks in the back of the cafe, including children’s clothes.

The cafe includes an apparel shop with its own original line of children’s clothes in the back © Cafe Taiyou-no-tou

The Space

Each Taiyou-no-tou location is a bit different in its interior space, and the Namba City location is far and away the most child-friendly. It’s also on the larger side, with its own whole apparel shop in the back – including an original line of children’s clothing.

The larger of the child-friendly floor seating areas at Taiyou-no-tou © Cafe Taiyou-no-tou

Airy, warmly decorated, and fully non-smoking with great floor seating and couch seating spaces, the shop has a fun, casual, and somewhat funky hippy vibe evocative of the same 20th century Japanese youth counterculture for which such places as Tokyo’s Shimokitazawa neighborhood and Osaka’s Nakazakicho neighborhood are famous.

Couch seating, ensconced within semi-private half-wall dividers, is an option at Taiyou-no-tou as well © Angelino Donnachaidh

To enjoy your coffee, tea, sweets, or lunch along with some nice weather and people-watching, the shop also offers a spacious outdoor dining area. As the shop is located off a pedestrian-only walkway area, this also makes it a safe bet for more active older kids who might want to stretch their legs a little bit more than the interior allows for, while staying within parental sightlines.

The outdoor seating area is partially covered and divided off from the main walkway © Angelino Donnachaidh

The Service and Amenities

With its strong showing of interior kid-friendly touches like floor and couch seating options, toys, a full-service child menu, and a convenient location in a major shopping center surrounded by convenient access to shopping, baby-friendly bathrooms, and the like, Cafe Taiyou-no-tou Namba City is a safe bet to enjoy some cafe time with the kids in the heart of the city. As mentioned, it even features an apparel shop in the back with its own original line of children’s clothing.

A bilingual children’s menu has families covered even if they don’t read Japanese © Cafe Taiyou-no-tou

If there are any drawbacks at all to mention about Cafe Taiyou-no-tou, it’s that the shop is a victim of its own popularity. With a reputation among local parents (particularly the mama-tomo, or “mommy friend” groups that form among parents with kids at the same preschools or kindergartens), it can get quite packed during peak times. While reservations are a good idea if you want to get a particular seat in the house, they are unfortunately not accepted on Saturdays, Sundays, and Holidays between noon and 5 pm–meaning at those times tables are first-come, first-serve.

The cake case at the Taiyou-no-tou front counter is lit up like a beacon in the dark — literally and figuratively © Angelino Donnachaidh

The Food

Though its Namba City location is billed as (and functionally is) a cafe, in terms of its strengths Taiyou-no-tou is probably better understood as a patisserie with coffee and tea service. (In fact, the chain also has some locations that only sell take-home cakes and pies.)

Drink servings tend to be on the smaller side for comparably priced cafes, while on the other hand the shop offers an unrivaled lineup of cakes, pies, and tarts with generous portions and famously artful plating.

A decadent Taiyou-no-tou strawberry chart, plated with the fun visual style the cafe is known for © Cafe Taiyou-no-tou

But it’s not all sweets. Taiyou-no-tou also has some great meal set offerings of a similar kind of healthy, balanced, and eclectic Japanese cafe fare to some Cafe Yusoshi Chano-ma and Babyleaf on our Best Osaka Restaurants for Families with Young Children and Babies list, though with its own distinctive spins. The curry and pasta are local favorites for good reason.

The Taiyou-no-tou lunch plates offer an eclectic lineup of classic modern Japanese cafe fare © Cafe Taiyou-no-tou

Cafe Taiyou-no-tou has four cafe locations and three patisserie specialty shops in Osaka, as well as an online shop carrying its apparel and interior goods line. The information above refers to its Namba City location.

About Angelino Donnachaidh
Angelino Donnachaidh is a Mexican-American father, author, Japanese-English translator, and longtime resident of Osaka, Japan. His works include the middle grade (pre-)historical fiction novel Tamiu: A Cat’s Tale (Winner of the North Street Prize and CWA Muse Medallion), the YA post-cyberpunk heist adventure screenplay Brother (Winner of the HollywoodGenre 2025 Scifi Screenplay Competition), and the upcoming samurai scifi-fantasy action-thriller novel The Mayhem Protocols.

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Cafe Taiyou-no-tou Namba City Information

Name in English:
Cafe Taiyou-no-tou Namba City

Name in Japanese:
cafe太陽ノ塔 NAMBA CITY

English address:
Namba Carnival Mall, 5 Chome-1-60 Namba, Chuo Ward, Osaka, 542-0076

Japanese address:
なんばカーニバルモール, ５丁目-１-６０ 難波 中央区 大阪市 大阪府 542-0076

Opening hours:
11:00am-10:00pm (every day)
(Reservations not accepted 12:00pm-5:00pm on Saturdays, Sundays, and Holidays)

Non-smoking area: All non-smoking

Price:
¥1000-¥2000 per person

Nearest transport:
6-minute walk from Namba Station on the Osaka Metro (Subway) Midosuji, Sennichimae, and Yotsubashi Lines
7-minute walk from Osaka-Namba Station on the Kintetsu Hanshin-Namba, Kintetsu-Nara, and Kintetsu Limited Express Lines
2-minute walk from Namba Station on the Nankai and Nankai-Koya Lines

Website: Official website (Japanese)

Customer Reviews:
:: Read customer reviews of Cafe Taiyou-no-tou on TripAdvisor.

Near To Here:
Cafe Taiyou-no-tou is located in Osaka’s Minami district. See our complete list of things to do in the Minami district, including places to eat, nightlife and places to stay.

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