As self-service coffee shop chains saturate the market, their small-scale, often pricey predecessors are feeling the squeeze, and those in Tokyo and Osaka are struggling to survive by focusing on their uniqueness.
According to the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, there were some 150,000 coffee shops nationwide in the first half of the 1980s.
However, that number had dropped to some 84,000 as of last year.
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