Kunitachi has a quietly serious coffee and music culture that goes back decades. The kissaten — old-style Japanese coffee shops, often dimly lit, with high-quality sound systems and a no-laptop etiquette — are still going in the back streets around the station, serving single-origin pour-overs and occasionally playing vinyl at a volume that makes conversation secondary. These places have a loyal regular clientele and are some of the better spots in the western suburbs to sit quietly and drink good coffee.
Jazz bars occupy a similar niche. Several small venues and listening bars in the neighbourhood play recorded jazz through serious speaker systems or host occasional live sessions; the format owes something to the pure jazz kissa tradition that peaked in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s and has survived longest in university towns and intellectual neighbourhoods like this one. They open in the early evenings, tend to close before midnight, and typically do not charge a cover unless there is a live performance.
The overall drinking culture in Kunitachi is low-key and civilised. There are izakayas and wine bars mixed in among the cafes, but the area does not have a late-night bar scene in any significant sense: when Hitotsubashi students want that, they go to Shinjuku. What remains is a set of places well-suited to a long, quiet evening of coffee or wine with a book or a conversation.