Well-Known Ginza Bartender Dies

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: End of an era at bar Lupin
Takeshi Takasaki, who served cocktails for more than half a century at celebrated Tokyo bar Lupin, died of pneumonia on Friday. He was 82. Opened by Takasaki's elder sister in 1928 in a Ginza basement, the bar was patronized by literary figures including Osamu Dazai [below is the iconic 1946 photograph of Dazai, sitting on a Lupin bar stool], Kan Kikuchi and Ango Sakaguchi. Takasaki started working as a bartender there in 1951, and stayed behind the counter until around 2005, when he started having trouble walking.



A lot of these long-standing bars can be very stiff places where the establishment has come to believe it is more important than the customers. Lupin, however, has always been a friendly place and welcoming to any foreigners who made it down. I'll leave Greji to tell us whether it was like that back in 1928.

[Greji]

I'll leave Greji to tell us whether it was like that back in 1928.

It was cheaper to graze the goats in that area then! But if your talking about the joint that sits back in the alley off of Miyukidori one street before Namikii dori, back behind the Mikasa Kaikan, I refuse to admit to knowing anything about it. Actually, there's a lot of rags in that area, both newspapers and shukanshi. Hell, if you walk out of the front door you run into the wall of the Bungei Shunju Annex. This is why it became a favorite watering hole for writers and others in the industry. Some of the more famous ones were only the equivalent of post war copy boys when they started hanging out there.

But of course I have only heard rumors about that and would have no knowledge of any joint that sells adult beverages.