Celebrating Girls-Love at the Yen Press Yuri Café in New York City

In 2025, The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All by Sumiko Arai, often referred to as the “Green Yuri” among fans, saw incredible success. Named Best Manga of the Year at the American Manga Awards, it has opened doors for other yuri manga, including inee's LOVE-BULLET, to get full merchandising pushes, allowing publisher Yen Press to step into a moment of yuri supremacy.

To celebrate this moment and the fan enthusiasm that made it possible, Yen Press created a one-day yuri café in midtown Manhattan at the end of January. To their surprise, the response was so large that they had to implement a reservation system for the first day and, a week later, expand the one-day café to a full week, running through February 13. No reservations are currently required for the remaining days.

Held at Enoch's, a delightful art café on 10th Avenue, the event was initially meant to be a relaxed sit-and-read-and-talk event, but the number of fans who responded meant a bigger plan was needed.

I arrived at noon on Saturday, as the 11 o'clock reservations were winding down. My wife and I were given a wristband and a raffle ticket for one of the Kinokuniya-exclusive LOVE-BULLET editions. Since I already had both the regular and Japanese editions, neither of us took one, so someone else had the chance. From there, we entered a small, warm, and exceedingly friendly café that had been transformed into a yuri wonderland.

Standees from LOVE-BULLET, The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All, and She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat, stood along one side of the café, Kinokuniya was running a table along the other side, filled with yuri manga from Yen, GL manhwa from Ize Press and merchandise. Freebies were available—posters, pins, and postcards.

The café also offered a themed menu. Every menu purchase included a yuri coaster featuring one of four series. matcha latte for The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All, hibiscus tea for LOVE-BULLET, raspberry lemonade for I Love Amy, and a choice of sweets for She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat.

As I walked around the room talking with folks, I was delighted to meet so many wonderful fans—our preferred fandom name is "Yurijin," since we don't believe that fandom needs to be gendered. We discussed the series we liked and didn't like, and everyone I spoke to expressed a special joy in seeing a place just for yuri. I was sitting down with some folks from Yen and Ize, drinking my tea and eating my sweets, and just listening to the voice at the counter shouting out, “One Green Yuri!” “Two Red Yuris” as drink orders came up. It was special.

I had a moment to sit down with Mark de Vera, sales and marketing director at Yen Press, to chat about the café. I asked him where the initial idea for the yuri café came from. He said that in the last year, The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All and LOVE-BULLET had become two of their top-selling titles, and “the passion fans have for yuri has become so much more apparent recently. So why not have a yuri café event in the romance month of February?”

de Vera gushed about the variety and diversity of yuri fandom—we agreed that the turnout looked like New York City; people of all kinds. He said that normally, one can make assumptions about a given fandom, you know, can guess who is going to walk through the door, but the yuri fandom defeats that. As I have said for decades, “Yuri is by anyone, and yuri is for everyone,” and the turnout really spoke to that.

When asked about what Yen thought when they saw the initial reaction to the announcement, he said, “It's a combination of a ton of emotions. The immediate one was excitement…it did, admittedly raise a little bit of concern. But…because of the partnership with Enoch's and friends we've worked with to host events in the New York area, I think we made it work pretty well.”

I asked if they might consider taking the idea on the road, which received a very strong positive response: “We'd absolutely love to as a company.” He then concluded by saying something I strongly believe. “In some ways, we've been borrowing from what fans have been doing themselves. The concept of this café isn't original… What I would say to anybody is —whether you're a company or an individual, it is very clear that there are communities out there who would like to come together for a celebration, whether for a character's birthday or for a category of manga. I encourage you all to go ahead and host an event, make yuri cafés happen in your own area. Don't wait for a company like us to do it. People will come out.”

As someone who has shepherded yuri from an idea to a genre and run events and informal get-togethers, I strongly agree with this!

I want to sincerely thank Yen Press for making us all feel welcome and giving us “stuff”—everyone loves promotional stuff—to Enoch's for yummy food and drink, Kinokuniya for bringing out the merch and coming books, and to all the fabulous yurijin who chatted with us at the café, or will enjoy it this week. It was a very special moment. When we were done speaking, de Vera asked what I thought, and as the counter once again called out “One Red Yuri,” I was suddenly overwhelmed and teared up a little. In my best New York Yiddish, I said, “I'm verklempt.”

The Yen Press Yuri Café will be at Enoch's at 480 10th Avenue, New York City, through February 13. Drop by for a heartwarming yuri community, merch, sweet treats, and plenty of yuri love.