Late night canteen.
As the name suggests, it is a canteen that only opens late at night and is open only at night.
It sounds like just an ordinary late-night snack stall, but in Japan, it is a unique culture that belongs only to this overseas island country.
Unlike ordinary restaurants and bars open at night, the menu of this type of restaurant is very simple, just a piece of paper with a few items printed in order:
XX set meal—XX yen.
XX noodles—XX yen.
XX wine—XX yen.
The number of items is usually limited to the single digit, usually five or six. In addition, you can also order dishes that are not on the menu, as long as the store has the ingredients and the owner can cook it, they will sell it.
Don't expect to eat any delicacies in such places. The area of such restaurants is as small as a dozen square meters and as large as thirty to fifty square meters. The ingredients in the store are common goods that can be found everywhere. They are easy to store and don't spoil easily. Some even use whatever is cheap.
What? Do you think there are customers for such a restaurant? Can it continue to operate
In other countries, it would be difficult for such a restaurant to survive unless there were no restaurants nearby. But in Japan, such restaurants are quite popular, and the longer they are open, the more popular their business becomes.
This has a lot to do with Japanese society and culture. In Japan, people don't go home after get off work, but go out to drink and eat with clients or colleagues, and go home after 8 or 9 o'clock. If you don't do this, you will appear useless, your colleagues will exclude you, your boss will look down on you, your family will dislike you, and the company may even fire you.
This custom originated in the last century when Japan's economy was booming. At that time, evening socializing became the mainstream of society, and in many companies, the receipts from socializing could be used to deduct taxes. Although Japan's economy was no longer so prosperous later, this custom was passed down as a culture.
On the other hand, Japan is a country with a fast pace and high pressure. After a day of work and life, people accumulate all kinds of pressure and complaints, and they need a place to vent. And the lower the people are, the greater the pressure is. Therefore, this kind of cheap restaurant that can provide a place to vent is very popular. Perhaps the customers are not eating food, but the feeling of home.
"Rokusotei" located in Iwate Prefecture, Hokkaido is such an ordinary late-night restaurant.
"Laoshouting" was not originally called "Laoshouting", but a more common name. The boss was an old man in his sixties, but recently he was replaced by a young man who seemed not to be a local and had a Kansai accent. I heard that he was the boss's relative, who had been living outside for many years and had achieved nothing. The boss was old and in poor health, so he took over the shop and changed the original name without any characteristics to the current "Laoshouting".
At first, the old customers were worried that the familiar place would become unfamiliar. But soon, they found that although the name of the store had changed, the decoration inside the store had not changed, and the familiar people around were still there. The young people were doing the same dishes and doing the same work as the previous boss, and their words and behaviors were not as impetuous as those of today's young people. Instead, they were more mature and experienced.
Opening a shop is not an easy thing. You have to deal with the government and the underworld. Every year, there are news of conflicts between businessmen and the underworld, leading to bloodshed, and young people account for the majority of them. But this young man is different. No matter what situation he encounters, he is always friendly and solves the problem in a few words. The arrogant gang members who usually come to the shop also become friendly and sometimes sit down to eat something like the guests.
It's still the same recipe, the same taste, and more importantly, the familiar feeling never disappears. The small disturbance of changing the store name and the owner disappeared in the passage of time. It didn't take long for the old customers to think that the new store name was very appropriate. After all, everyone came here to complain.
The young new owner also brought a lot of surprises to everyone. Compared with the previous owner who only knew how to cook local cuisine, the new owner can cook a lot of things. He not only cooks Kanto, Hokkaido, and Okinawa, but also some foreign cuisine.
A curious customer asked the owner: "You are so good, why don't you go to a better place?"
The young man just smiled and replied: "I just traveled a lot when I was living a lazy life, and I learned a little bit. It's not as exaggerated as you say, and I don't have a chef certificate. Besides, if I leave, who will cook for everyone?"
Then there were all kinds of jokes and reminiscences from the regular customers, and the atmosphere in the Complaint Booth became a little more lively.
However, this is only a minor episode that occurs very rarely. Most of the time, the atmosphere in the Complaint Pavilion is stable and a bit dull.
Customers walked into the store, quietly ordered a glass of wine, the older ones would order sake, the younger ones would order beer, and called out the names of dishes that had already been mentioned many times, and then grumbled about the wine and food. Perhaps only when someone encountered something happy or the young owner was bored and developed new dishes, there would be a different atmosphere in the store.
Regular customers call this a surprise. The last surprise was eight or nine days ago, when the boss got a few small bottles of wine called "Erguotou" from somewhere. It looked no different from sake, but after taking a sip, I realized that it tasted much stronger than sake. When I asked carefully, the alcohol content was as high as 52 degrees, which is three to four times the alcohol content of ordinary sake. It was a pity that he could get this kind of stuff. It seems that what he said about his wild ways was really not empty talk.
Of course, there are regrets. After all, he is a young man, and the new manager is not very good at cooking some dishes that only older people know. Every time this happens, the manager will sincerely apologize to the customer and humbly ask for advice. If the customer does not know how to cook, he will take time to visit the local elderly. Soon, a new name will appear on the boss's order that is not written on the menu.
It is this serious attitude that has made the shop more and more famous in the neighborhood and its business is getting better and better. Some old customers even think that it is not a bad thing to marry the women of marriageable age in their family to the boss, and they have begun to test the matter in a roundabout way.
But they quickly dismissed the idea because this young man who looked like nothing special and just an ordinary person actually had an incredibly beautiful girlfriend.
Every time it was late at night, when most of the customers had left, the girl who liked to wear white clothes would walk into the store and shout in a voice that was out of tune with the atmosphere of the store:
"Hey, I'm hungry, Shin-ah, Haruki."
or-
"I'm so bored. Come play with me, Haruki."
Whenever something like this happened, the young boss would cut with a knife or a piece of paper or simply throw a tomato, apple or something like that over.
"Don't make trouble. I've told you so many times not to affect others, Hesa. If you're hungry, wait a while and I'll make you something to eat. If you're bored, come and help me wash the dishes."
As a result, there was another young and beautiful figure in the store.
PS: Alas, Touma and Yukina are both good girls, but unfortunately they are limited by the vision of the short-lived species. It is better to be an immortal species, what do you think? Yustisa, Elquet, Master