Parting is such very, very sweet sorrow.
No one’s really watching their calories on October 31, right? Between trick-or-treating, Halloween parties, and all those tempting candy displays in the stores, there’s no better occasion for indulging your sweet tooth multiple times during the same day. And if you’re already leaving room for desserts, this Halloween is a very good time to make a visit to Cold Stone, because on October 31 they’re permanently closing their last remaining branch in east Japan.
Cold Stone’s time in Japan has been a rollercoaster ride. The chain first showed up in Japan in 2005 and became an immediate sensation among sweets fans, with long lines forming to try the offerings of the American “creamery” and listening to the staff’s cheerful singing voices while they waited. For a while there, Cold Stone looked poised to enter the ranks of Japan’s lovingly adopted brands from the U.S. such as McDonald’s and Starbuck’s. Unfortunately, not long after Cold Stone Japan’s expansion plans heated up, consumer enthusiasm for the chain started to cool off. In time, branches started closing down, with the even vacating Tokyo entirely for a while.
Eventually, though, Cold Stone found its way back to the capital. In 2023, it opened a new branch Tokyo’s Tama district, and then another in downtown’s trendy Harajuku neighborhood.
▼ The Harajuku branch, shortly after its opening in June of 2023
Sadly, neither of those comeback bids panned out, and by April of 2025, there were once again no Cold Stone branches anywhere in Tokyo, and the only remaining location in all of east Japan was located inside an outlet shopping mall in Tochigi Prefecture…which closed down one month later.
But then this past summer came a ray of hope for Cold Stone fans in east Japan with the opening of a Cold Stone branch in the town of Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture, Tokyo’s neighbor to the south. Kamakura is a major sightseeing destination, with temples, shrines, hiking trails, and beaches, and it’s only about an hour by train from Tokyo, making it an easy daytrip for Tokyoites and travelers staying at hotels in the capital.
▼ Video of the Kamakura Cold Stone’s opening day on July 30
Being a big Cold Stone fan, our ace reporter Mr. Sato was thrilled to have the chain back in east Japan, and was looking forward to getting a scoop or two the next time he was down in Kamakura. The urgency on his plans to visit the city got rapidly cranked up, though, when on October 29 Cold Stone Japan announced through its official Instagram account that it would be permanently closing its Kamakura branch, and doing so in just two days’ time, on October 31.
So Mr. Sato dropped everything, dashed to the station, and rode the train to Kamakura.
The Kamakura Cold Stone has a pretty good location. It’s outside JR Kamakura Station’s west exit, which isn’t as busy and developed as the east side of the structure, but there’s still a decent amount of foot traffic, especially since the shop is close to the transfer gates for the Enoden rail line that runs along the shore and provides ironically picturesque views.
At this point, Mr. Sato might still have been able to delude himself into believing that there’d been some kind of mistake in Cold Stone’s Instagram announcement, and that the store wasn’t actually shutting down after just three months in business. But sure enough, there was a written notice posted at the counter that said:
Cold Stone Creamery Kamakura Station
Notice of closureWe are grateful to the support shown by so many visitors since our opening. As of October 31, Cold Stone Creamery Kamakura Station will be closing.
We wish to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of our customers. We will continue to do our best to provide all of you with Happy Creamery experiences.
We look forward to seeing all of your smiles again someday. Thank you so much for everything.
So this was really going to be goodbye. Carefully weighing his options for this final Cold Stone session, Mr. Sato asked for Dobai chocolate ice cream in a chocolate waffle bowl, covered with chocolate sauce. “Is it OK if we sing?” asked the staff, unwaveringly cheerful, even now, and Mr. Sato said “Yes! Please!”
“I was sad to hear you’ll be closing.” Said Mr. Sato after the song was finished and they handed him his order. “Yes, we only found out about it two days ago,” said the clerk, revealing that they’d apparently been as surprised as Mr. Sato was at the turn of events.
▼ Mr. Sato’s ice cream. He does not fool around when it comes to grand finales of his favorite dessert places.
Mr. Sato couldn’t help silently wondering why it had to end like this. It’s not like Japan doesn’t like ice cream. As a matter of fact, Japan loves ice cream. Baskin-Robbins has over 1,000 branches in Japan, including one on the other side of Kamakura Station. Aside from specialty shops, fast food chains and snack stands sell ice cream all year round, as do convenience stores and super markets.
So why can’t Cold Stone seem to get a stronger foothold in the country? The company hasn’t made any official statement explaining its woes, but as we’ve discussed before, it might have something to do with the kind of ice cream that Cold Stone serves not matching up with how Japan would like it served. Ice cream fans in Japan are fine with casual settings or eating on the go for simple frozen treats, like a modest-sized scoop of Baskin-Robbins or personal-size serving of Häagen-Dazs. On the other end of the spectrum, leisurely savoring a large, decadent parfait at a cozy or fashionable cafe is considered a highlight-of-the-day-caliber experience. Cold Stone, though, doesn’t really fit into either of those two scenarios. Their desserts are big, heavy, and potentially messy, the sort of thing that Japanese sweets fans usually want to sit down and take their time with, but Cold Stone’s focus has always been primarily on take-out, and that incongruent combination is likely a limiting factor in terms of the chain’s potential appeal to a broad demographic in Japan.
This does, though, leave the limited demographic of passionate Cold Stone fans like Mr. Sato in an unfortunate position, though, since even if they do exist, there apparently just aren’t enough of them to keep Cold Stone a viable venture. It’s enough to bring a tear to your eye…but after hearing the staff bravely sing as they put together his order, Mr. Sato knew that if he was going to have to say goodbye, again, he was going to say goodbye with a smile.
The October 31 closing means that, as of November 1, there will be only one remaining Cold Stone in all of Japan, located in the Mitsui Outlet Park Jazz Dream Nagashima in Mie Prefecture. Even taking the Shinkansen, it takes about three hours to get there from Tokyo, so Mr. Sato’s first wish would be for Cold Stone to rest up and make one more comeback attempt in the Tokyo area, but if they can’t, he might just need to book some bullet train tickets the next time his cravings hit.
Location information
Cold Stone Creamery (Kamakura Station branch) / コールド・ストーン・クリーマリー（鎌倉駅前店）
Address: Kanagawa-ken, Kamakura-shi, Onari-cho 11-1
Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Photos ©SoraNews24
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[ Read in Japanese ]