Kiku Hifi, Liverpool — A Jazz Kissa in the Ropewalks
Coffee at nine, records until midnight — a jazz kissa on a rope-maker's street.
By Rafi Mercer
New Listing
Venue Name: Kiku Hifi
Address: 40 Gradwell Street, Liverpool, L1 4JH, UK
Website: None published at time of listing — Instagram is the venue's only direct channel
Instagram: @kikuhifi
The streets in this part of Liverpool are long and thin because of rope. They were laid out as ropewalks — narrow runs of open ground where hemp was twisted into cable for the ships that made the city rich. The trade is gone. The shape it left behind is still there in the street plan, and the district still carries the name.
Kiku Hifi opened on one of those streets on 13 July 2026. Forty Gradwell Street, a short walk from Liverpool ONE in one direction and the Baltic Triangle in the other. It is a coffee shop from nine in the morning and a listening bar by evening, and the whole of it turns on that hinge.
It comes from Mike Girling, who also runs Suono and L'Aperitivo in the city. Suono is the loud one — a listening bar built closer to a club. Kiku is the deliberate step down in volume, and Girling has been direct about why: he wanted to lean into the history of the jazz kissa, which he describes as where the entire concept comes from.
Jazz kissa began in Japan in the 1920s. Small rooms, expensive imported records, an audio system better than anything a person could own, and a room that agreed to sit still while it played. The form has been imitated widely enough that the word now gets applied loosely. What separates the real thing from the borrowed aesthetic is usually a rule, and Kiku has one. Albums are played from start to finish on the turntables. Girling ties that directly to a slower, more mindful way of listening, and the programming stays inside jazz and what sits next to it — soulful house, soul, R&B.
The equipment is vintage. Girling talks about the amp behind the bar and the large studio monitors, and about vinyl mattering because everything else is instant now. Beyond that, no spec has been published — no brands, no models, no cartridge. That gap will get closed in time. For now the room's own description is what stands: natural materials, a lot of wood and greenery, built out with Bauen.
The coffee is not an afterthought bolted to the sound. Jade Edwards, a DJ and barista of twelve years, runs it. Beans come from Little Moments, a female-owned roastery in Northern Ireland, with guest coffee from West Coast Coffee and pastries from The Butterholic and Solo Bread. She has talked about curating the music and making the coffee and talking to customers as one job rather than three.
Evenings bring natural wine, cocktails and a short beer list, and the volume comes up a little. Pooky, of Bonsai Hi Fi Sound System, holds Friday nights. PJ Smith — Roy — plays from eleven on Sunday mornings into the early afternoon, which may be the truest kissa slot on the schedule. Open until eleven Sunday to Thursday, midnight on Friday and Saturday.
There is a quieter argument buried in all of this. Girling has said there are plenty of people in Liverpool who want great sound and great music without alcohol attached, and that a room ought to be able to hold both. That is not a small thing. Most cities put their best sound systems behind a bar and a door charge and a late hour, and then wonder why the audience narrows. A room that opens at nine has a different door.
Rope was made by walking the same line, slowly, until the thing held. It seems a reasonable street to put a record on.
Rafi Mercer writes daily at Tracks & Tales. Become a member to sit closer to the work. More rooms worth knowing in the venue archive.
