Snoopy in Japan (2026): The Museum Left Roppongi, and Three Cafes Have Closed

Snoopy has been enormously popular in Japan for decades, and the English-language information about where to actually go is several years behind. The museum moved out of Roppongi in 2018. The original Peanuts Cafe closed in 2024. A second cafe closed in 2025, and a diner in 2023. All four still appear in current recommendations.

So this guide does two things: it says plainly what has closed, and it explains the parts of the live venues that trip visitors up — timed-entry tickets sold until the night before, a hotel that opens its calendar twice a year, and a museum shop you cannot enter without a ticket.

The museum is not in Roppongi, and has not been since 2018

This is the single biggest error in English coverage, and it is easy to see how it happened: the Roppongi museum was a limited run from the start, and it was a hit.

The museum describes itself as the only satellite of the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California, anywhere in the world. It is open 10:00 to 18:00 on weekdays and until 19:00 at weekends, with last entry half an hour before closing, and it closes on just two days a year.

It is almost never closed

Unusually for a Japanese museum, there is no weekly closing day. The published closures are two dates in the whole year — January 1 and one day in February — and the English page says the same. So the constraint on your visit is the entry slot, not the calendar. One thing to be aware of if you are planning a weekday morning: school groups from the local city visit on some Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays between 10:30 and 12:00 from June to February.

Getting there from Shibuya

It is easier than the Machida address suggests. From Shibuya it is 29.2 km on the Den-en-toshi line — 350 yen by ticket, 347 by IC card, about 35 minutes on a semi-express — and the museum is a four-minute walk from the station, which connects directly into the shopping park. From Shin-Yokohama it is about 20 minutes. Airport limousine buses run directly to the station's north exit from both Haneda and Narita.

Tickets are timed, and English buyers have their own channel

Entry runs on timed slots starting at 10:00 and running through the afternoon, with a 17:00 slot added at weekends and on holidays. The important part: there is no time limit once you are inside and no forced exit, so the slot governs when you go in, not how long you stay.

Under-4s are free, and holders of a disability certificate pay half price on every ticket type, with carers charged the standard rate. There is no group and no senior discount. Advance tickets go on sale on the first of the previous month and stop at 20:00 the day before your visit. They are delivered as a QR code on your phone only.

The English route is KKday

The museum's English page links two sellers: the Japanese ticket agent, and KKday, which is the practical option if you do not read Japanese. Advance tickets cannot be changed or refunded — an unused one can be exchanged within three months for a 200 yen fee — but arriving late for your slot is fine, and you can still enter the same day without contacting anyone.

Same-day tickets are a maybe, not a plan

The museum sells same-day tickets only when there is room inside. Whether they are available, and until what time, is published on the official same-day ticket page and updated at 8:30 every morning. On a normal late-August day that meant sales from around 10:00 until last entry at 17:30 — but that is a daily decision, not a policy. If the museum is the reason you are making the trip out to Machida, book the slot.

Inside: the shop rule is the one that catches people

Two things about the layout that are worth knowing before you arrive, because both have caught out visitors who only wanted to shop.

The rest of the practical detail, in one place: re-entry is not permitted; payment is cash, credit card or transit IC, and QR payment apps are not accepted; there are no coin lockers, though large bags can be left at the cloakroom; there are no vending machines and no ATM inside; and photography is allowed apart from some video exhibits, without flash or tripods. Two wheelchairs are available to borrow.

Right now, part of it is closed

The special exhibition changes over on a fixed schedule and there is a gap between shows. The exhibition that ran to August 30, 2026 was followed by a changeover from August 31 to September 4, during which the second-floor exhibition room could not be seen — the permanent galleries stayed open, and visitors during that window were given a small gift. The next exhibition opens on September 5, 2026, with a new drawing station appearing on the same floor. Seasonal programs rotate roughly every two months on top of that, so check the current dates rather than assuming a show you read about is still up.

Three Peanuts cafes English guides recommend have closed

This is where outdated recommendations do the most damage, because two of them were the photogenic ones.

The five that are open

The Harajuku branch is the easiest to fold into a normal day — it opens at 9:00, which is unusually early for the area, and it is in the basement of a building a short walk from the station while you are exploring Harajuku. Note that Kobe is a takeaway stand and takes no reservations, which is different from the other four. For the wider category, see our guide to themed cafes in Tokyo and to the Kirby Cafe.

What the cafes actually cost

Two published examples give you the range, because the formats differ more than the branding suggests. At the Kobe takeaway stand, a plain hot dog is 590 yen, a peanut butter milkshake 860 and a homemade lemonade 590. At the Nagoya sit-down cafe, a character burger is 2,530 yen, a hot dog 1,320 and pancakes 1,518. So Kobe is a snack stop and Nagoya is a meal, at roughly four times the price for the headline dish.

Peanuts Diner, the sit-down restaurant format, now exists in Kobe only, on the third floor of the hotel, open 11:00 to 23:00. It doubles as the hotel breakfast room in the morning.

The hotel opens its calendar twice a year

Peanuts Hotel in Kobe is 18 rooms across three themed floors, and every room is built around a different comic strip. The thing to understand is the booking system, because it is not a rolling window.

Rooms run from 30,000 yen before tax at the lower end to 55,000 for the top room, a 31-square-meter twin with a terrace, and breakfast is included in the room rate. Payment is online by card only. Check-in is from 15:00, check-out by 11:00, and late check-out costs 2,000 yen an hour for up to two hours. Cancellation charges start seven days out, and arriving more than two hours after your stated time without contact is treated as a cancellation.

What the hotel does not have

Worth checking against your expectations of a hotel at this price. There are no bathtubs — showers only. There are no pajamas provided. And there are no extra beds, no cots and no children's amenities, although under-12s sleeping in an existing bed are free, with breakfast charged separately. Take-home amenities were fully renewed in July 2026 for the hotel's eighth anniversary.

Snoopy Chaya: eight locations, none of them in a city center

This is the part of Snoopy in Japan that English coverage almost entirely misses, and it is arguably the most interesting. Snoopy Chaya is a Japanese teahouse format — chaya means teahouse — and its branches sit in tourist towns rather than shopping districts.

Winter hours are genuinely different

Several branches switch to shorter hours from early December to early March — typically closing 30 minutes earlier, and in Arashiyama's case the whole day shifts. That matters in exactly the places where it is most likely to catch you: Arashiyama in winter gets dark early and the last entry to nearby sites moves too. Check the branch page rather than assuming the summer time you read somewhere still applies.

All eight open year-round, and several switch to shorter winter hours from early December to early March. Some carry a Snoopy-shaped baked sweet and some do not, which varies by branch. If you are already going to Kyoto for tea, Arashiyama and Nishiki are both on routes you would walk anyway — this is not a detour.

Snoopy Town Shop is the everyday option

For merchandise without a museum ticket, the standing chain is Snoopy Town Shop, run by the company behind the Harajuku character store. Branches sit inside department stores and malls across the country, and the ones on a typical visitor route include Harajuku, Tokyo Station's Character Street, Skytree Town Solamachi, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro Sunshine City, Osaka Umeda, Shinsaibashi and Kyoto Shijo-Kawaramachi.

There is also an indoor playground

Beyond the shops there is Snoopy Playful Park, described as Japan's first indoor Snoopy playground, inside a shopping mall in Narashino, Chiba. It runs on timed sessions with a full changeover, admission is free for under-ones, and anyone of primary school age or younger must be accompanied by an adult aged 16 or over. Two practical notes: it is cashless only, and there are no toilets inside — you use the ones elsewhere on the floor and re-enter. We are not quoting a price, because the official page does not publish one.

Driving to the museum is the one real mistake

It looks like a shopping mall with a big car park, so people drive. Two facts make that the wrong call. The museum has no car park of its own. And the part of the complex it sits in — which also contains the Peanuts Cafe — is excluded from the parking benefit that the rest of the center offers.

In practice that means spending money at the museum or the cafe earns you no free parking time at all. The main car park charges by the half hour, and its free period on weekdays does not apply at weekends, which is when most people visit. Given that the train from Shibuya is 350 yen and 35 minutes to a station that connects straight into the park, driving costs more and takes longer.

Putting a day together

If the museum is the point of the trip: book a timed slot in advance through KKday, take the Den-en-toshi line from Shibuya, and give yourself a full afternoon — there is no time limit inside, and the shop can only be reached after the exhibition, so leave room at the end. Eat at the Peanuts Cafe before you go in, since it needs no ticket and the museum has no food inside.

If you are staying central and only want an hour: Harajuku gives you the cafe from 9:00 and a Snoopy Town Shop in the same neighborhood. If you are heading to Kansai: the Kobe hotel, the diner and the cafe are all in one building, and Kyoto has two Snoopy Chaya on routes you would already walk. And if the hotel is what you want, the only thing that matters is being ready when the next half-year block opens.

Snoopy in Japan FAQ

Sources

Museum history, opening hours, admission prices, entry slots, same-day ticket policy, shop and re-entry rules, payment methods and exhibition dates: the museum's own Japanese and English pages, including its FAQ and its daily same-day ticket notice. Cafe and diner closures, surviving branches, hours and reservation policy: the operator's own closure announcements and store list, cross-checked against the Yokohama complex's tenant listing. Hotel room types, rates, inclusions, booking-release dates and cancellation terms: the hotel's own site in both languages — where those two disagree, we have said so rather than choosing. Teahouse locations and year-round opening: Snoopy Chaya's official site. Shop branches: the chain's official store list. Fares and distance from Shibuya: the railway operator's published fare and distance tables. Parking exclusions: the shopping park's own access page. All read on August 31, 2026 — exhibitions rotate and branches close, so confirm before you travel.

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