If you are deciding whether a timber-yard cafe outside Marugame is worth pulling the campervan off the main road for, the answer depends on how much your kids like making noise.
KITOKURAS is a cafe and workshop complex run by Yamaichi Lumber, a timber company founded in 1947. This guide covers what actually happens once you get there: the staircase that plays piano notes, the forest seating across the road, and what the access is like if you are driving something larger than a compact car.
What is there actually to do here
The site is split by a narrow road. On one side is the main building, the shop, and the piano staircase. On the other side is a forest walking trail, a small playground, and a scatter of timber-frame pavilions where you can sit with your drinks and look at the trees.
Inside the main building, each step of the staircase plays a piano note when you walk on it. Our four kids spent close to fifteen minutes on it, trying to play songs they knew. The scale of the steps did not match what they expected, so nothing came out right. That made it funnier, not more frustrating. One of them said it felt like being small enough to walk inside a piano.
It felt like being small enough to walk inside a piano.
What we ordered and what it cost
We got coffee, apple ginger, and orange juice, and shared all three between us. The apple ginger was the one everyone kept reaching for. Online listings put the menu in the roughly ¥1 to ¥1,000 range per item, which matches what we remember paying for drinks. We did not order food, so we cannot speak to a full meal here.
Getting there by campervan
The road running past the cafe is a narrow rural spur, the kind common in this part of Kagawa. It is what separates the cafe building from the forest side, so you are crossing it on foot as much as driving it. We came through in our self-built camper without needing to reverse or backtrack, but this is not a wide, coach-friendly access road. If you are driving something larger than a standard campervan, or towing anything, it is worth checking the width before you commit, since neither we nor the available listings give an exact figure.
INFO ・ KITOKURAS Marugame cafe
- Hours: 10:00–17:00, closed Thursdays
- Address: 3600-5 Kurikumahigashi, Ayauta-cho, Marugame, Kagawa 761-2406
- Rating: 4.2 from 358 reviews on Google, as of writing
- Link: Official site
The shop and workshops
Past the cafe counter there is a shop selling wooden craft items, cut slabs, and timber offcuts. Yamaichi Lumber runs workshops here regularly, tied to their business as a timber company rather than added on for tourists. We did not stay for one this time, so we cannot report on the format or the price.
When to go
The cafe is closed on Thursdays, which is easy to miss if you are routing a Shikoku loop on the fly. Outside of that, it opens at 10:00 and runs through the afternoon. The forest side seating means a dry, mild day matters more here than at an indoor-only cafe, since the appeal is sitting outside the main building rather than in it.
This is worth a stop if you are already moving through Marugame with kids in the car and want somewhere they can burn off energy that isn’t a playground alone. It is not worth a special detour if you are not passing nearby, since the drive itself is the main cost of visiting. If you are set on trying a workshop, call ahead, since we cannot confirm they run every day or without booking.
