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An article for today is about one of Japanese traditional restaurant, Ryotei.

Ryotei, the high-class Japanese restaurant, is an expensive restaurant of Japan.  And they seem to be alive with wealthy people.  So to some extent, it is not very much a place for the common people.

Today, I would like to introduce one of Ryotei’s traditional “no one shot customer policy”.

This may sound pretty closed business, but with this system, Ryotei can avoid any customer who visit them for the first time without any invitation of their old customers.

Well, in businesswise, it is quite unusual to refuse your customers in like, isn’t it…? (-_-;)

But young owner of an old Ryotei in Tokyo kindly explained about this unique system in the article. 🙂

It seems this funny system originated in traditional calculation method of geisha girls’ payment.  Ryotei is not only a place to serve food, but also a place to entertain customers in multiple ways; dance, talks, etc.  Their unique hospitality method even prevents each customer of them from encountering each other when they leave the premises.  For this reason, geishas of some customer, who intend to leave soon, had to keep serving for their customer to stay longer if there is any other group of customers, who are leaving at the same time so that 2 group of customers do not have to see each other.

Geishas were paid hourly, but Ryotei could not fix bill of each customer until their customer actual leave their premises as hours of service can vary, depending on leaving time of other customers.  So invoice can only be sent after customers went home, this is why Ryotei limited their customers to those who has previously used Ryotei and those who Ryotei knows where to send the invoice to.

Wow, this is quite easy to understand because if you don’t know where to send your invoice, the service fee may never ever get paid…Lol

Nowadays, some Ryotei still follow this old tradition, but the concept has been slightly changed; this system is to appreciate their regular customers.  Also, if you do your business with your regular customers, you can well understand about your customers, and provide possible the best hospitality service to them.  For this reason, some still follows the policy.

Ok, so they are only trying to provide their best possible service they can～.  Now, I understand why they can be so costly ☆

If you are not an old customer of Ryotei yourself and don’t have any Ryotei customer friends, don’t worry.  Sometimes, there is an event to enjoy a little bit of Ryotei atmosphere by eating packed food of Ryotei, admiring dance of geishas.  It seems you can even talk to geishas during a little brake time between entertainment sessions.  If there is such an event available during your stay in Japan, this may well be worth watching 🙂

What do you think about today’s article?

I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Source: web R25

This is JAPAN Style!