Kiku Hifi, a hybrid coffee shop and wine bar inspired by Japanese jazz kissa culture, has opened on Gradwell Street in Liverpool city centre. Owner Mike Girling, who also runs L’Aperitivo and Suono, told the Liverpool Echo that the venue fills a gap in the local scene: “Liverpool’s got an amazing evening bar scene but it hasn’t got anything like this.”
A concept rooted in Japanese jazz kissa
The venue draws from the jazz kissa tradition, which began in Japan in the 1920s as listening bars and cafés dedicated to high-fidelity playback of recorded jazz. Girling explained: “Suono is built around the idea of a listening bar but it's more of a club version so with this place I really wanted to lean into the history of jazz kissa, which is where the entire concept comes from.”
Kiku Hifi operates from 9am to 11pm Sunday to Thursday and 9am to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. During the day it serves coffee from Northern Irish roaster Little Moments, with guest coffee from West Coast Coffee and pastries from The Butterholic and Solo Bread. In the evening, the music is turned up slightly and the menu shifts to natural wines, cocktails, and a small beer selection.
Analogue experience in a digital age
Girling emphasized the deliberate move away from digital streaming: “Everything’s online now and streaming music is so instantaneous so this is about returning to an older, more physical way of doing things. All the music is jazz and jazz-adjacent so that goes into genres like soulful house, soul and R&B and all the albums are played from start to finish on the turntables.”
The venue features vintage hi-fi equipment, including a restored amplifier and large studio monitor speakers. Girling noted: “There’s a huge movement for these kinds of places around the world because people want to return to analogue experiences and reconnect to real life.”
Local talent and curated vibes
Jade Edwards, a DJ and barista, manages the coffee menu. She told the Echo: “I first got into coffee about 12 years ago and I started in Costa and chains like that before gradually moving into independent places. We get our coffee from a little roastery in Northern Ireland called Little Moments which is female-owned and really nice coffee.”
DJ Pooky from Bonsai Hi Fi Sound System will be the resident DJ on Friday nights, while DJ PJ Smith (stage name Roy) will play records from 11am to mid-afternoon on Sundays.
Design and local partnerships
The interior, created with builders from Bauen, aims for a natural, organic feel. Girling said: “Another motivation to open Kiku was because I got bored of coffee shops. Obviously they serve a fantastic purpose but a lot of them all look the same. There's no reason why a coffee shop shouldn't be as nice as a really good bar.”
He added: “We're trying to do both things. You've got the elevated coffee experience in the day and then the evening version of that which is centred around our curated menu.”
Demand for hybrid spaces
Girling believes the timing is right for such a venue: “There's a demand for it and there's a big growth of these sorts of places all over the world in most of the major cities. There's plenty of people in Liverpool who love listening to high quality sounds and great music but don't necessarily want to have alcohol with that so why not create a space that has the ability for that in the day as well as in the night?”
