Filbert Steps

I’ve walked passed this place for over a year before finally walking in. The café is always packed, both indoor and outdoors. During the winter, they have heaters on the outdoor patio to keep folks warm. Like other reviews say, there are a lot of people having meetings over coffee.
The cold brew is pretty tasty. The coffee is strong and flavorful. For the hot coffees, they let you choose 3 ways to brew the coffee — drip, French press, and chemex.
Adjacent to the coffee shop is a huge roasting machine. It’s not clear who owns this machine as it has the Gorilla Coffee logo all over the windows and walls. Gorilla Coffee is a shop from Brooklyn. They opened a coffee shop about 5 minutes away from Filberts in spring 2015.

The place has a nice atmosphere and not too loud (no projector that previous reviews mentions), however it did get a big noisy when they started roasting the coffee beans. Fairly obvious since they have a whole room dedicated to their beans and the process of roasting them. I consider this something you have to live with since they roast the beans on the spot. And the staff was super friendly and even apologized for the noise.
Coffee was good, and the tuna sandwich as well. However the range of edible things were very limited and they don’t have soy-​milk for the lattes.
It was also a bit cold indoors and although a lot of seats for either on or two persons, groups will find it hard to fit in here.

(2.5/5stars)
Beyond Unilocal 100 Challenge 2015 — 11/​?
Filbert Steps is a hipster café located about a ten minute walk from Shibuya station in the Jinnan area. You’ll recognize it by the abundance of wood and earth tones, plus the distinctive white on brown graphic design motif so common among these new style third wave coffee establishments.
So I pop in here once in a while to avoid the high (er) prices of mega-​chain «S» and for a bit of different atmosphere. Notice I didn’t mention the coffee is the draw. Why not? Read on…
Observations:
+ Staff/​service: 2.5÷5 stars (YMMV but there are some staff with serious attitude «issues» here. Can’t yet figure out if it’s because they really believe their coffee is head and shoulders above other places (it’s not) or they’re trying to reinforce the hipster coolness «attitude» but honestly, they need to review the basic rule of McD’s — smiles are free)
+ Coffee: ³⁄₅ (it’s slightly better than McDs but lacks the true kick or deep flavors you’ll find at other shops. Ironic as they tout their coffee geekiness as a brand trademark. Hmmm… maybe I haven’t invested enough into their «experience» through multiple visits yet? I’ve been here over ten times already though…)
+ Value: ³⁄₅ (so we’re balancing price, quality, taste, ambiance, attitude — not quite hitting the mark although visible effort is being made… maybe)
+ Ambiance: ²⁄₅ (inside, the BGM is way too loud, enough so that it drowns out your conversation with your accomplice. Same goes for your thoughts if you’re alone. A large screen projecting American TV shows from the 60’s adds no plusses to ambiance or coolness. Just turn it and the glaring BGM off already, please?)
+ Other notes: Smoking outside OK; wifi availability not tested; no plugins
So you’ll notice that I called the above items observations instead of highlights. For obvious reasons, until we see a majority pushing north of 3 star level, I’m trying to keep things objective here.
There is also a food menu featuring hot dogs, sandwiches, pastries and jar salads (more trendy pseudo-​hipster «eats») — I’ve had a couple items but didn’t think they were worthy of inclusion into the observations. Overall, I think you’ll agree that despite the efforts aimed at presenting a hipster coffee geek experience, an overhaul and focus on simplicity without the frilly distractions attempting to create ambiance with attitude is in order.
I’ll check it out again from time to time and update my review accordingly. Rating three stars today based on potential — YMMV.

Filbert Steps is a funny place.
Casual, comfortable, relaxed.
Silly «coffee geek» theme.
But the coffee is legitimately good. The young employees use careful pour over technique.
When I was there, 3 separate high powered business meetings appeared to be going on between some young, creative types on the far side if the seating area.

Cute café. Had decent food choices. Excellent cold brew. Nice atmosphere, they were playing Tom & Jerry on the projector when I was there. Employees were super nice.