Café Sign All Day: Daikanyama’s Newest Hideout

From vegan-friendly menus, creative salads, excellent coffee brews, and more, this is a place to spend a whole day at.

When you decide to open an establishment in the effortlessly cool pocket of Daikanyama, you’ve got to be pretty confident. Given the abundance of well-established coffee houses, bars and restaurants in the area, competition can be tight. But the latest addition to the local café scene, Sign All Day, is ready to live up to exceed expectations with their unique take on Tokyo’s casual dining and drinking experience.  

Opened in July this year, Sign All Day is a sunny deli, coffee shop, beer garden and Italian restaurant, all rolled into one. Located in the foot-traffic heavy corner of Daikanyama station, this hybrid establishment manages to be trendy while still being completely accessible for the casual café goer. This laid-back cool is what many have come to expect from its representing company, Transit General Office, the hospitality group curating some of the best dining experiences in Japan.

The latest addition to Tokyo’s newest and coolest

The team behind Transit are responsible for some of Japan’s best and undeniably most popular contemporary establishments. Think bills, Guzman y Gomez, Ice Monster, The Apollo, and the shop behind the viral corn and watermelon soft serve, Dominique Ansel Bakery. Drawing influence from its contemporaries but managing to have its own completely unique flavor, Sign All Day is a welcome addition to this growing family.

Massively design focused, Sign All Day was crafted in the image of a modern day deli-stand while drawing influence from sunny slow paced beachside Australian cafes. With floor to ceiling glass walls and open minimalist interior, it’s a fresh light-drenched escape that beckons you to slow down and take a moment to escape the manic energy of Tokyo city life.

The team behind Sign All Day take design as seriously as they take their menu. Aesthetically, the café’s theme is “restaurant in the forest” drawing inspiration from the word yama (mountain) in Daikanyama. The carefully selected colors of their hand-painted signs and use of stone materials create a hidden country getaway atmosphere. From takeaway coffee cups adorned with the work of San Francisco artist Jenny Sharaf and commissioned wall murals by local talent Ryuji Kamiyama, the café is filled with uniquely curated pieces of contemporary art.

Diverse menu, creative salads, and great coffee

Keeping with the laid back vibe is the restaurant’s super flexible and diverse daytime menu. The breakfast menu starts at 9 am, and offers a variety of hot sandwiches, the always-popular pancakes, vegan-friendly chia seed puddings and an incredible selection of rustic bakery style pastries, all made in house.

But leave that aside, rewind a bit and get back to what’s the most important refreshment early in the morning. Coffee. As an Australian, I can attest that you can’t be an Aussie-inspired café without taking coffee seriously, but after visiting Sign All Day, I can tell you — again, as an Australian — that these guys are very serious about making great coffee, as the coffee here is brewed to perfection. But if you’re trying to avoid caffeine, they also have a variety of smoothies and alternative options on offer. One recommendation is the iced matcha latte, a light and just-hitting-the-right-amount-of-sweetness drink that’s the perfect coffee substitute.  

Lunchtime is all about the deli. Featuring a variety of rotating salads made from the freshest seasonal produce, customers are given the options to mix and match their selections with a few lunch sets on offer. There’s the ¥1,300 two deli salads and hot sandwich combination, the ¥1,200 three salad option, or the two sandwich deal which will set you back ¥1,100. All options include a complimentary coffee or tea on weekdays (there’s a ¥200 surcharge on weekends). Given the amount of salad and the café stacks on your plate, the price is more than reasonable.

The deli salads are not your regular lettuce and tomato offerings. By salads, the Sign All Day team means marinated swordfish and eggplant, balsamic pumpkin and lentils, shiso marinated burdock and chorizo, all of which were on offer during my visit and all of which were undeniably delicious. For vegan and vegetarian diners, the menu is more than accessible with there being a variety of vegan-friendly sandwiches and salad on offer every single day.

Dinner visitors are treated to the work of Chef Goto, who has made his name in Tokyo thanks to his work at Hiroo’s famous Italian go-to, Melograno. The small bites style plates see Goto draw directly from his time working in Italy and Japan. After three years of learning age-old Italian techniques, Goto brought his experiences back to Tokyo’s food scene working as the head chef at Biffi Teatro before opening Melograno. What’s so special about Goto’s work is his ability to combine old world Italian techniques with a more fast past contemporary Japanese flair.

Late in the day

With a cute deck patio style outside area, Sign All Day is also the perfect afternoon drinking hangout. The drink menu features draft beer from Tokushima Prefecture‘s Rise & Win Brewing Co. and a diverse international wine list selected by the Transit sommelier team. If sours are more your style, the bar features a curated offering of Japanese sour cocktails with flavors matched expertly with different shochu bases. From lemon sours with wheat shochu to milk-based options mixed with mason shochu, there’s something for every taste.

Given their ability to create a welcoming and diverse, homey atmosphere, it doesn’t matter whether it’s 9 am or 9 pm, the crew at Sign All Day are the ideal casual dining hangout for anyone roaming around the Tokyo area — at any given time of the day.

The Deets

Address: Daikanyama Station building 19-4 Daikanyamacho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Business Hours: Daily, 9 a.m. – 11 p.m.