Panama Hotel Tea and Coffee House

The Tea and Coffee House, although a part of the much larger hotel building, can only be accessed from the street. If the shop bears any resemblance to its name, then it is only in its interior design that consists of two floors connected by a staircase.

It is a tourist attraction par excellence and caters primarily to the hotel's residents who receive a continental breakfast as part of their nightly fee. The shop, like the hotel, is a historical landmark and remnant of the Japanese community that inhabited the area before the Japanese internment during the Asian Pacific War of the early 40s.

If you want to meet Japanese then go to the Maneki Restaurant just around the corner and sit at the bar. You will know they are Japanese, because they will purposely thwart your every attempt to speak with them in Japanese, if you yourself are not Japanese.