Beppu Onsen Hotel Shiragiku

A big, mostly tatami-room hotel-ryokan near Beppu Station, loved for its free welcome lounge, pâtissier-made breakfast sweets and a 265-tatami free-flowing bath — but it's a 1970s tower with busy shared baths, some thin walls and a 2026 data-breach notice

Hotel Shiragiku began in 1957 as the Shiragiku-sō inn at Kamitanoyu and grew into a 12-storey main building (1973) with east and west wings; the company counts 90 rooms, and one booking site lists 45 Japanese, 15 Japanese-Western and 12 Western rooms. Its draw is food and free extras rather than seclusion. On arrival, guests drink wine, local sake and shōchū and graze on sweets in the 12th-floor lounge over Beppu Bay (15:00–17:30); after the bath there are free ice lollies, coffee and, at night, a limited homemade pudding. Dinner is a 'modern kaiseki' with French and Italian touches in the top-floor dining room, kaiseki in your room, or a private-room restaurant, Kikusaiko; breakfast is an 80-dish buffet with more than 15 pâtissier-made cakes. The two bath houses use the inn's own sodium bicarbonate spring, free-flowing with water added to cool it, and swap daily between men and women. Most recent evidence comes from booking-site reviews rather than blogs: 4.6 across 1,486 reviews on one major site (breakfast 4.9, service 4.8, dinner 4.7) and 4.54 across 1,467 on another. Guests from 2025 to 2026 praise the staff, the lounge and the breakfast sweets. Complaints: a 30-minute breakfast queue in summer 2026, tiny red worms in a washing area (September 2026), noise from next door, poor views from third-floor twins, leaves in the outdoor bath, children splashing in the bath, an ageing building, and one couple who felt ¥70,000 for two wasn't worth it. Two-meal stays usually run about ¥23,000–30,000+ per person.