Tachinomi Shomin

Tachinomi Shomin is what an Osakan would immediately recognise as precisely what a standing bar is supposed to be. The refrain ‘it’s cheap and delicious here’ is as popular among patrons when the bill arrives as it is important for the owner, who built the bar to be that way.

Shomin has kept the form of the tachinomi pure: handwritten menus on the wall, a tiled L-shaped counter, scores of regulars, and prices so low that when its Kyobashi location opened in 2019, the surrounding bars supposedly had to drop their own to compete.

And it is indeed unbelievably cheap. Dishes top out around ¥500, and a draft beer or highball will only set you back ¥350. A few thousand yen and you soon find yourself with more plates than fit on the table: tataki, cold seared beef with garlic; hanpamaki, mixed-fish sushi rolls of whatever’s fresh that day; fried sausages; and fried chicken.

While the bar was founded in Kyoto, it crossed into Osaka with this Kyobashi outpost and has since spread to Temma, Umeda, Tenmabashi, Nishi-Nakajima, Juso and Takatsuki. The Kyobashi flagship is a fantastic follow-on to nearby Izakaya Toyo: it’s just around the corner and has much more forgiving opening hours while bringing you back into the bustle of Kyobashi.

But whatever the location, the cash-only Shomin bars are adored by locals, and with doors open from 11am, every single one sees a steady daytime trade, be it a weekday or a weekend. Just look for the iconic door hanging with the angled gentleman enjoying what is presumably not his first drink.