Home is where the heart is and the Persona series does a better job than almost any other JRPG series of making your home such a vital location in its games. Such is the case with Persona 5 and the player’s home at Cafe Leblanc.
You spend so much time at this location in the game that it is worth exploring exactly what its purpose is in this Persona 5 Cafe Leblanc guide.
Cafe Leblanc is a location that you will likely become instantly familiar with and at home at. The small cafe with its two floors, if you can call it that, is home to Joker, the main character you play in Persona 5.
It is a musty old cafe with few customers but it plays home to some of the best scenes, moments, and activities that you can do whenever you want in the game. Find out about all of these and more in this Persona 5 Cafe Leblanc guide.
Bottom Line Up Front
Cafe Leblanc is the player’s home in Persona 5. It is where Joker moves in after being taken in by Sojiro, the owner of the cafe. The cafe itself has a nostalgic style to it that is unique and cute in a way.
The cafe is known for its coffee and curry, both of which the player is able to learn how to make over the course of the game. In addition, it is home to where the player sleeps and can complete many of the optional activities in the game like crafting items for dungeons.
Persona 5 Cafe Leblanc Overview
There is no place like home, and Cafe Leblanc is precisely that for the character you play in Persona 5, Joker. The leader of the Phantom Thieves begins the game as someone who is running away from home and has some troubles that he went through there recently.
As such, he is taken in by Sojiro Sakura, the owner of a small cafe in a quiet neighborhood in the middle of Tokyo. The player moves into the cafe and makes it his home for the duration of the following calendar year. For you, the player, Cafe Leblanc, is essentially your home base.
The same goes for the members of the Phantom Thieves, as they primarily call the cafe their base of operations for much of the game.
A lot of the planning and ideas that they come up with happen here, making it one of the most essential locales that you’ll visit in the game. In fact, I would even argue that it is the most crucial home in any of the Persona games so far.
There are so many events that happen at Cafe Leblanc and plenty of optional activities for the player to involve themselves with. If you are a natural-born homebody, there is much to keep you occupied with at the cafe, including studying, working out, and so much more.
This is all before including all of your friends you can hang out with and everything else that happens here. You’re in the right place for everything you need to know about Cafe Leblanc. Let’s get started.
Appearance
The style of Cafe Leblanc is reminiscent of an old-school nostalgic cafe style. If you’ve ever been to Japan before, you’ll notice that Cafe Leblanc has a signature small setting where there are only three main table booths and a counter with several seats for customers to sit at. This is a classic Japanese style for a restaurant/cafe.
However, the actual aesthetic of the cafe is dark, moody, and a whole lot of brown. This gives it an almost European or mid-20th-century style that is quite unique. This provides the cafe with a flavor that isn’t necessarily seen in some of the other homes that you live in, in previous Persona games.
Lastly, there is the second floor of the cafe where Joker stays. This place is quite different from the main cafe, looking like a musty old attic if anything. It doesn’t even look like a place where someone should stay, outside of the windows and ample space that it has. This area lacks the personality that the rest of the beautiful cafe has.
Residents of Cafe Leblanc
There are a few people who reside at Cafe Leblanc or at least call it their partial home. In the case of Sojiro, he doesn’t live at the cafe but, rather, at a house down the street. However, he spends much of his time there as the owner of this cafe and the only person who mans the entire place by himself.
You could say it is his second home since Sojiro is always at the cafe and doing stuff there. But there is the person who actually lives at the cafe and that is Joker. He is the main character you play as and the person who spends a large portion of his life sleeping there and doing other activities.
Joker is the main person who lives at the cafe, residing on the second floor, which is entirely his. Well, except for a particular other resident who comes to live on the floor with him. That person is none other than Morgana, the (not) cat who comes from the Metaverse and a valuable member of the Phantom Thieves.
After Morgana comes to the real world in his (not) cat form, he begins living with Joker and sleeps on the second floor with him. He is essentially like a sibling to Joker and one of the other core residents of the cafe for the duration of the game.
Key Moments for Cafe Leblanc in Persona 5
Cafe Leblanc is one of the core settings for Persona 5, so there are a lot of events that happen here. That said, it is mainly a backdrop for the Phantom Thieves to meet together and all that.
Here are some of the key moments that happen at the cafe over the course of the game. Keep in mind that you will find some significant spoilers below in this list, so turn away now if you haven’t beaten the game yet:
- Joker meets Sojiro and moves into the second floor of Cafe Leblanc
- Morgana comes to live with Joker after arriving in the real world
- The Phantom Thieves occasionally gather at the cafe to meet about various Palaces they’re taking on
- Sae Niijima comes to the cafe to scout out the place after becoming suspicious
- Goro Akechi also investigates the cafe after learning more about the Phantom Thieves
- The group gathers together and meets before taking on Sae’s Palace, and the inevitable betrayal
- They hold parties together at the cafe to celebrate various events
- In Royal only, the Phantom Thieves spend a lot of time in the cafe going over the final Palace and working through the fake world
- If Joker romances a girl during Persona 5, he may meet with her at the cafe toward the end of the game on Valentine’s Day
What the Player Can Do Here
Cafe Leblanc is the home for the player and, like the house in Persona 4, it is a place where there are many activities that happen.
It isn’t just the place for Joker to lay his head, but the location where the Phantom Thieves gather and several time-consuming activities can occur. Here is everything that you can do whenever you are at Cafe Leblanc in Persona 5.
Sleep
The first thing that Joker can do at Cafe Leblanc is undoubtedly the most obvious one: sleep. This is a crucial point, despite its clear nature, because this is how you advance most of the time to the next day in the calendar year in Persona 5.
After you’ve spent the day stealing hearts, exploring Palaces, grinding out Personas in Mementos, hanging out with your friends, going to school, working part-time jobs, and all of that, it is time to go to sleep. Doing so will allow the player to advance to the next day in the game and do it all over again.
But there is more to it than this. Sleeping is also one of the ways to skip over periods in the game. While I don’t recommend this basically ever, if you are itching to get to the next day for whatever reason, you can skip over engaging in other activities by just going to sleep.
Again, this is the worst use of your time when there are so many other activities to do, even at Cafe Leblanc, so I don’t recommend doing it.
Cleaning the Room and Growing Plants
At the beginning of Persona 5, the room that Joker is staying in is a mess. It is a chaotic storage area that Sojiro apparently never cleaned. You clean up just enough in the initial parts of the game to allow for you to sleep peacefully on the bed, but that’s about it.
Optionally, you can choose at any point to waste time cleaning up the room entirely and having a nice place to spend time. Outside of the aesthetic reasons why you may choose to do this, cleaning up Joker’s room will allow him to engage in other activities there that aren’t possible otherwise.
For instance, you can grow plants in your room by planting a seed. The benefits you get from this are fantastic for your social skills, so it is worth doing. But it is one of the activities you can’t experience unless you clean up your room.
Watch TV and Check Stats
Next up is an activity that takes place in the cafe on the first floor. There is a TV in the main cafe service area for the customers to check out. However, Joker can also use the TV to watch the news and see what’s happening. This is a nice way to see what’s happening in Tokyo and around the world before school.
But the TV is also used for the weekly quiz show that happens in Persona 5. Joker can watch this show, and if he answers the weekly question correctly, his social stats will go up. It’s a neat and hidden little activity that takes almost no time to do, so it’s worth checking out.
In addition, one of the other lesser-known features of the cafe is the bathroom. If you interact with the door, Joker can go in the bathroom and take care of his business there. When he does so, he will look in the mirror, and you’ll get one of the best indicators of how your five social stats are shaping up currently.
Make Curry and Coffee
The benefit of working at a cafe is that you can actually be a cook and barista yourself. If you spend time with Sojiro (more on that in a moment), you’ll unlock some extra features for your Persona 5 playthrough. Over time, you’ll learn to make Sojiro’s signature curry and coffee items.
These are the items that all of the customers come in for, and you’ll be able to spend time making them, too. These items have actual benefits, too, allowing you to consume them in battle to restore SP and all that for your party members.
There are different types of curry and coffee you can learn to make, too, that improve these benefits from consumption. Admittedly, though, this is one of my least favorite options you can do at the cafe since it takes up a segment of time to make these items, which I don’t think is fully worth it.
Spend Time with Sojiro
However, something that is worth your time always is spending time with your Confidants. One of the Confidants that hangs out at the cafe that you can spend time with is Sojiro, your legal guardian. The old man will spend time around the cafe after hours just before heading home.
On certain nights when you have free time, and Sojiro is available, you’ll be able to chat it up with him and spend the evening getting to know your new dad better. I highly recommend taking advantage of this whenever you can, as Sojiro has one of the better Confidant storylines in the cast.
Like Dojima in Persona 4, Sojiro is an underrated character who is so integral to the story. Still, you definitely want to get to know him on a deeper level to have a further appreciation for his impressive story arc.
And if you are one of those people who like to spend all their hours in the game making curry and coffee — you do you! — you’ll want to hang out with Sojiro if you want to do that. Ranking up his relationship levels will unlock those options for you in the cafe to engage with as he teaches you the ropes of running the place.
Spend Time with Morgana
The other Confidant that resides in the cafe is Morgana, who you can also spend time with here. This is a very different situation from how Sojiro’s Confidant works. This isn’t, technically, a standard activity that you choose to engage in when you are at the cafe.
Instead, the Confidant and spending time with Morgana is more of a story-based automatic event. As you progress throughout the storyline and defeat the various Palace rulers, there will be cutscenes of you laying in bed or sitting around and chatting with Morgana.
These intimate and special moments will rank up your relationship with him and further deepen that bond.
Spend Time with Futaba
The final Confidant that has to do with the cafe (sort of) is Futaba. Futaba Sakura, the daughter of Sojiro Sakura, is one of the members of the Phantom Thieves. As the team navigator and analyzer, she is basically like your cousin/little sister and your neighbor all in one!
Now, to be clear, she doesn’t hang out within the cafe itself but right outside of it. During the daytime, on certain days after school, Futaba will be hanging around right outside the cafe entrance and waiting for you to spend time with her.
If you want to enjoy getting to know her more and helping her to overcome her fears of going outside, this is the way to do it. Just don’t accidentally head inside the cafe when you meet her after school, or you may skip all the way to nighttime and lose out on that time in the process.
Work Out
One of the other activities players can do in their room is to work out. Joker can train in his room, which is one of the lesser-used and known features in the game. It is absolutely possible to play through the whole game and never realize this system exists or forget about it.
When in your room, you can interact with the chair and start training sessions to increase the battle stats of Joker. There are a couple of aspects to training at home, including the type of training you do. It is possible to raise your health or SP, letting Joker withstand attacks for longer and cast more skills in the battles.
Training at home takes up a segment of time, usually at nighttime, so you won’t be able to do basically any other activity that night. There are ways to maximize your training potential, too, through the use of protein drinks and the like you can buy from the store.
I’ll be honest that you shouldn’t touch this activity if you are playing the base Persona 5 due to the over-complicated and annoying state that it is in. However, if you are playing Persona 5 Royal, it can be a somewhat helpful feature occasionally if there are no Confidants and the like to spend time with.
Craft Dungeon Items
One of the most popular and well-known activities you can do at home is to craft the dungeon items in your bedroom. Morgana teaches you how to create infiltration tools near the start of the game, and from that point forward, you can work on the workbench at nighttime and create some items.
There is a downside to that, namely being the fact that spending time at your workbench making items will pass the time in the game. So, you want to make this really count by trying to make the best items you possibly can.
How you go about that is as you progress through the story, you’ll raise your ranks with Morgana. Doing so will let you make better infiltration tools to unlock chests in dungeons, escape places, and all that. Unfortunately, this means that you can’t speed up the process of unlocking the better infiltration tools on your first playthrough.
Admittedly, this is another activity I appreciate in Persona 5, but I don’t ever spend time doing it. I don’t feel like it adds much, other than the lock picks, which are worth spending your precious time getting.
Read Books and Study for School
Finally, the last option you have for spending time at home is to expand your brain. This is done through two possible options you have. The first is to hang out in your room and read a book. This requires you to own a book, or else you won’t even be able to do this task.
What I recommend is to head to one of the bookstores in the game, such as the one on Shibuya Central Street, and then pick up a book or two. Then head home, and you’ll be able to read the selections you have. What you should know is that books are divided into different parts.
Sometimes, the book has two parts, three parts, or more. The idea is that it takes many reading sessions to read each section. So, spending one night reading your book will only complete one of the sections. Worse still, you may not get any social stat boosts until you complete the entire book.
Thankfully, the books tell you ahead of time what skill they boost — Charm, Kindness, etc. — so you know what you’re getting into ahead of time. Reading books can be fun, and there are ways to boost the stat bonuses you get from reading, so this could be an intriguing option.
The other scholarly option is to study at home. Occasionally, you can hang out in one of the booths down on the first floor of the cafe and study for school. This will hone your education skills and ultimately up your Knowledge stat.
This is one of the better options to spend your time at night when you have nothing better to do. I rarely do it in Persona 5, but there were a couple of times that I read books or studied. There are certainly worse ways to spend your time, especially if it is raining that evening.
FAQs
Question: Is Cafe Leblanc a Real Cafe?
Answer: No, Cafe Leblanc isn’t an actual cafe in the real world. In fact, the neighborhood that it is based in has a totally different name in the real world of Sangen-Jaya.
There is a street that looks like the one the cafe’s street in the game is based on, but there is no cafe there. However, other cafes in Tokyo seem to have inspired Leblanc.
Question: Where is Cafe Leblanc Persona 5?
Answer: Within Persona 5, Cafe Leblanc is based in Yongen-Jaya, which is a fictional name for a real neighborhood called Sangen-Jaya in Tokyo. This neighborhood is found in Setagaya-ku, one of the 23 special wards in Tokyo, notably on the west side of the city.
Question: Are Persona 5 Locations Real?
Answer: Yes, many of the Persona 5 locations are real. Though Cafe Leblanc isn’t a real-world location, the neighborhood it’s in is based on a real, similarly designed area of Tokyo. In addition, places like Shibuya, Hachiko (oddly called Buchiko in the game), Shinjuku, Kichijoji, and many more are real places.
There are So Many Other Locations in Persona 5
Cafe Leblanc is one of the most famous and beloved locations in gaming history due to its synonymous nature with the rest of Persona 5. It is one of the most memorable locations in that game, especially since most of the rest of the game is only temporarily available (like Palaces) or already iconic for being based on real-life Tokyo.
But even though Cafe Leblanc is one of the best locations in Persona 5 due to its nostalgic and memorable factors, it is far from the only unforgettable locale you visit in the series. There are others, like the Velvet Room, and more that make up the rest of the list of the most famous Persona series locations you need to know about.
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