I noticed it while dragging my luggage across the tiled platform on our first night in Tokyo. I saw a group of men gathered around a small counter, laughing and sharing what looked like an enormous glass of sake.
At first glance, it looked like a coffee shop. But the magnum glass of sake said otherwise. A sake bar, I first thought.
Only later did I realise it was something even more interesting — a tachinomi bar, one of Japan’s small standing bars where people drink sake shoulder to shoulder.
The word tachinomi literally means “standing drink.” These bars are usually small, casual, and lively — places where people drop in for a quick drink before heading home.
Tachinomi bars have been part of Japanese drinking culture for decades. The concept is simple: no chairs, quick drinks, and short chit chats. Many tachinomi spots began as sake shops that allowed customers to open a bottle and drink on the spot.
The idea also reminded me of something Fafa and I often joke about — nippen, the culture of drinking while standing in Kerala. The term usually comes up when Fafa teases me, because it’s not like I’ve actually tried nippen before. Yet, I really want to.
And while I may have to wait for another Kerala trip to try the real thing (hint hint), I didn’t want to wait for the Japanese version.
So on our last night in Gotanda, I asked Fafa if we could stop by that tiny tachinomi bar.
We stepped inside with a simple plan. Just one drink. Just to dip our toes into tachinomi culture.
Aside from the extensive sake menu, there were many interesting food items. If we hadn’t just come back from a food tour, I would have opened the seafood tin immediately (I’ve recently fallen into a deep YouTube and Instagram rabbit hole about tinned seafood, and a tachinomi bar lined with neatly arranged tins felt like my version of heaven).
Even so, I couldn’t resist opening the plum tin, which paired perfectly with the first sake we chose.
But the real charm of the tachinomi bar — much like an omakase experience — was the hospitality of the host. He took an interest in us, and soon we were chatting about Melbourne, his past life in Brisbane, and his hope to return to Australia one day to get his barista licence.
We were having such a good time that he almost served us the warm sake he had been heating up for another patron while we were deep in conversation.
And I almost drank it.
Because few things feel better than sipping warm sake in a tachinomi bar while rain falls outside on a winter night, knowing your bed is only a short walk and elevator ride away.
But not this time. We really had to stop with one sake each as Aomori was waiting for us on the other side of the day, while Tokyo had already given us one more experience to take home, the memory of the tiny Tachinomi bar in Gotanda.
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