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Bar Owners
Connections Initiated by Bar Owners
by Alisa
How Are Connections Made Among People?
As mentioned in Making Customers Feel Welcome, the communication of the people inside the bar creates the atmosphere of the bar. The relationship between the customers and bar owners, and bar owners and bar staff generates an atmosphere that would attract their regular customers (Kotler, 1973).
It is important that we understand how the connections are initiated among the people in Golden Gai. Other than the welcoming initially enacted by bar owners, what types of connections are there?
People benefit from deep and meaningful conversations that help us forge connections with one another, but we often stick to small talk with strangers because we underestimate how much others are interested in our lives and wrongly believe that deeper conversations will be more awkward and less enjoyable than they actually are.
-Kardas, Kumar, & Epley, 2021
The quote above indicates how deeper conversations contribute to creating a closer bond with one another, yet individuals tend to mistakenly think that others would not be interested in their private lives, causing the hurdle of making deep conversations to become higher.
This page will look into how Golden Gai becomes an exception regarding this.
Images retrieved from https://r.gnavi.co.jp/g-interview/entry/g-mag/013087
Bar Owner & Customer
According to Maloney, Freeman & Zamanifard, individuals often find it easier to talk about private topics with those other than friends and family (2020). They would want to talk to people who they are likely to never meet again or would never need to reveal their identity. Bars in Golden Gai provide such places where individuals can easily enter yet also easily leave. This frankness creates the appeal of bars in Golden Gai.
Open Doors
The bar owners would neither force the customer to enter their shop nor force them to stay. Their open doors state that anyone can come in, while also signifying that they would not shut them inside. Customers can check the atmosphere of the bar from the outside, providing them the opportunity to choose which bar they would like to drink at. As normal restaurants are not this small, open, or casual, Golden Gai bars become an exception regarding the hurdle of deep conversation.
Close Distance
Moreover, despite the bar owner and the customer being complete strangers in most cases (excluding the cases when the customer is a friend or relative), the distance between them while the customer is drinking is rather close. As the bars of Golden Gai is very small and cramped, the distance between individuals becomes automatically close. They are close enough that they can easily clink glasses. Also, customers would be constantly facing the bar owner while spending their time in the bar, creating a sense of intimacy that is not normally found with other strangers.
The frankness and close distance contribute to creating a place where customers can comfortably make deep conversations (Kardas, Kumar, & Epley, 2021) with bar owners.
Bar Owner & Bar Staff
In some bars, there were bar staff who supported the running of the bar. They would go run errands such as buying groceries, delivering papers to neighboring bars, and cleaning the outside of the bar. They would also help make drinks and make conversation with customers.
The connection that could be observed between the bar owners and the staff was that there is a certain kind of closeness that cannot be seen among restaurant owners and part-time workers in other areas of Kabukicho, or anywhere else.
Physical Closeness
One of the first noticeable things is the physical closeness between the bar owners and staff. As mentioned in the previous section of Close Distance, not only are the customers and bar owners close but also the staff as well. In usual restaurants, part-time workers would be busy walking around the restaurant serving the customers. However, in the case of bars in Golden Gai, bar owners and their staff would have plenty of time to converse and get to know each other as they are always near one another.
Presentation of Affinity
The bar owners can create a friendly atmosphere just by conversing with their staff. By presenting their friendly side to people other than customers, the customers would unconsciously feel reassured that the bar owner is a genuinely trustable person. This would also contribute to helping customers feel less reluctant about making deep conversations.
Conclusion
The unique, deep connections among the people of Golden Gai is achieved by how bar owners initiate various conversations and connections with both customers and staff. Customers would be welcomed in and exposed to an environment where they are free to reveal their deep thoughts without worrying about how others would think about them, as they have not revealed their identity and also have the choice to step out of the bar whenever they want to.