A glass case of 150 plastic parfaits greets you at the door of this 1972 Kyoto kissaten — and if you call a week ahead, the kitchen will build you the real one that feeds 25.

Karafuneya Coffee opened in Kyoto’s Sanjo district in 1972 as a kissaten, the full-service coffee shop model — a server takes the order and brings it, no tray-carrying — that dominated Japan before self-service chains took over in the 1980s. The company has since grown to eleven locations across Kyoto, Osaka, and Okayama, but the Sanjo flagship, five minutes on foot from Kyoto Shiyakusho-mae Station, is the one that built the reputation: it alone runs roughly 150 parfait and sundae flavors, against three at the chain’s smallest branch and 100 at its Osaka Station outpost.

The menu doesn’t announce itself with a list. At the entrance sits a glass case stacked with plastic food samples of every parfait on offer, alongside slow-drip Dutch coffee brewed through apparatus over a meter tall.

A menu section labeled, in English, “Funny” carries the toppings that get photographed: a Fried Chicken Parfait (からあげパフェ, ¥1,380), a French Fries Parfait heaped with fries (もりもりポテトフライパフェ, ¥1,280), and a Takoyaki Parfait built on real fried octopus balls (たこ焼きパフェ, ¥1,280). A separate, earlier “Fake Takoyaki Parfait” does the same joke with cream puffs shaped to look like takoyaki, for anyone who wants the bit without the seafood.

Then there’s scale. Party-size parfaits run from a ¥14,000 Jumbo Parfait serving 8 to 10 up to Le Reve, a ¥60,000 tower of ice cream, whole pineapple, and dozens of ice cream cones built for 20 to 25 people — matching Atlas Obscura’s count exactly. None of the four party sizes are walk-in orders; all require booking at least a week out.

Ordering runs by number off a bilingual menu, so picking a flavor needs no Japanese, though staff and signage mostly do. The Sanjo shop keeps long hours — 9am to 10pm Sunday through Thursday, to 11pm Friday and Saturday — but weekend queues build, and there’s no version of showing up and ordering Le Reve on the spot. The wall of plastic samples is free to walk up to any time; the parfait behind it takes a phone call.