スナックバーちづる

Sunday is the one day of the week when my sense of day and night becomes a little confused.

I usually do a thorough cleaning of the shop, become completely exhausted, and go to bed much earlier than usual.

Then I wake up in the middle of the night.

But I don’t really dislike those quiet hours.

They give me time to do things I normally cannot find time for. 😊

 

Except for our days off, I spend almost the entire day preparing for work.

Even when I notice something that needs fixing, a whole week can pass before I have time to touch it.

So these strange Sunday hours are useful.

I can fix things.

I can work on the website.

And I can write this blog.

It isn’t particularly good for my body clock, of course.

But I suppose this, too, is part of the work.

 

At chiduru, we have our own timeline, as well as social media.

But there has always been a rather obvious problem with using the internet to attract customers.

Not many people are searching the internet because they are deeply interested in small Japanese snack bars.

And even if someone happens to find us…

Kagoshima is rather far away. 😅

It would be difficult to expect someone to think,

“I found this little place on the internet. Let’s go!”

 

So the internet has never been a particularly powerful customer-attraction tool for chiduru.

Perhaps that is one reason I have been able to write rather freely on this blog.

I write about what I want to write about.

Still, there are people who read these long articles carefully.

And because of that, I try to write seriously.

Honestly.

And as simply as I can about what I really feel.

To those of you who read them, thank you very much.

 

Today, I would like to write about something we have thought about for a long time:

What kind of place are we actually trying to make?

For many years, we have continued running chiduru while feeling a small sense of discomfort about being placed inside the category of a Japanese “snack bar.”

The difficult years of COVID made us think about this much more seriously.

And somewhere during that time, we began to understand more clearly what we had been trying to create all along.

So that is today’s story.

 

Thank you to everyone who continued to visit us even during times like this.

 

Perhaps chiduru Was Never Trying to Become a Snack Bar

 

For readers outside Japan, I should probably explain something first.

A Japanese snack or snack bar is a small nightlife establishment, usually run by a woman known as the “Mama.”

Customers drink, sing karaoke, and talk with the Mama and other staff.

Every shop is different, of course.

But conversation and personal interaction are usually an important part of the experience.

Sometimes there can also be an element of flirtation or emotional closeness.

 

I once heard someone in the same business describe snack bars as places of “pseudo-romance.”

Perhaps that is true for some places.

There is nothing wrong with that style if that is what the shop and its customers want.

But it has never suited us.

 

We don’t use flirtation as part of our service.

Actually, we don’t have much flirtation available to use in the first place. 😅

And even if a customer continues visiting because he has developed special feelings for one of us, we cannot really respond to those feelings in that way.

Turning someone’s affection into money has never felt natural to us.

That has been true since the day chiduru opened.

 

For a while, I sometimes wondered whether this was one reason our shop was so quiet.

Perhaps customers who wanted that kind of snack-bar experience simply had no reason to choose us.

We were no longer young.

We weren’t glamorous.

We weren’t offering romance.

So why, especially during the very difficult COVID years, did some customers continue supporting chiduru?

 

One clue came from something customers often told us:

“I had a good time.”

That made me think that perhaps what they valued was not the usual image of snack-bar service.

Perhaps it was a different kind of hospitality.

 

I want to be careful here.

I am not saying that the hospitality found in other snack bars is bad.

Not at all.

This isn’t a question of which style is better.

It is simply a difference in direction.

 

The hospitality we have gradually realized we want to offer is closer to the hospitality of a small inn or guesthouse.

That may sound rather strange.

After all…

chiduru is still a snack bar. 😅

We serve alcohol.

We have karaoke.

Mama talks with customers.

From the outside, it certainly looks like a snack bar.

 

But the feeling we want to create is slightly different.

Rather than making someone excited enough to stay,

we want to notice whether they are comfortable.

Rather than creating a special relationship for business,

we want to remember the person who came through our door.

Rather than thinking only about what happens while they are sitting in the shop,

we find ourselves thinking about the whole experience of being our guest.

 

That is probably why I often think about the hospitality of accommodation.

At a good inn, the guest is not simply occupying a room.

Someone notices.

Someone prepares.

Someone remembers.

Someone thinks about what might make that person’s stay a little more comfortable.

That is closer to what we want to learn.

 

 

The article above was originally written to recommend visiting chiduru on quieter weekdays.

Of course, from a business point of view, I should probably say,

“Weekends are wonderful too! Please come!”

But when the shop becomes busy, there are limits to what the two of us can do.

If we cannot give each person the kind of attention we want to give, then recommending a quieter day feels more honest.

 

We sometimes say that we are aiming for the hospitality of the lodging industry.

But if I compare chiduru to accommodation, we certainly aren’t a luxury hotel.

Not even close.

Perhaps a tiny Japanese guesthouse would be a more appropriate comparison for where we are now. 😅

 

Our interior isn’t sophisticated.

Our bottle shelves are often rather empty.

And the people providing the hospitality are getting older too…

That’s us. 😅

 

Still, for the customers who continue to choose us,

we want to give the best we can give today.

And then tomorrow,

we want that “best” to become just a little better.

 

We want to take care of the small connection between one person and another.

Carefully.

Without rushing it.

 

Perhaps that is what we have been trying to do all along.

We simply didn’t have the words for it.

 

chiduru is legally and practically a snack bar.

And there is nothing wrong with being a snack bar.

But somewhere along the way, we realized that the place we were trying to create in our hearts was a little different.

Not a place built around flirtation.

Not a place that needs to be exciting all the time.

Not a place where hospitality ends when the bill is paid.

 

Something closer to welcoming a guest.

Something closer to saying,

“While you are here, we will take care of you as best we can.”

 

We still have a very long way to go.

So for now, perhaps “tiny guesthouse level” is enough to aim for. 😅

But if someday our hospitality becomes good enough to reach even the level of a small Japanese minshuku…

I secretly think it might be nice to change the name.

From:

Snack Bar chiduru

to:

Minshuku chiduru.

 

Of course, I’m joking.

Well…

perhaps only half joking. 😊

 

That’s all for today.