Lucky’s Bar, Roppongi

In high school I had a friend who had two cats, Lucky and Shamrock (I’m not making this up). They were both all black. Lucky was the one who was run over by a car.

None of that has anything to do with Lucky’s Bar, which is pretty well hidden off an alley in Roppongi down Imoraizaka (the alley with the tempura place, across from ‘Chunk’, or the Swedish place, or the pet store, if you’re keeping score). There was a dog tethered to the front door who was making a big racket, so maybe there’s that animal linkage. He was pretty friendly, just lonely and excited to see people. Inside, Lucky’s turned out to be a Harley Davidson-themed bar, albeit with a sorta pink-and-red theme and a female owner.

The web site makes it look a good deal more grand than it actually is. The artful shot of the bar is artful mainly because it manages to camouflage the fact that the wall is right behind the bar stools – it’s hard to get through, especially if you’re a big biker and wearin’ yer leatherz. We didn’t check the second floor, but it looks like it has two small tables and a fancy dartboard. Another great feature on the web site is the “Get as drunk as you want” feature (酔い放題, it’s not ‘all you can drink’ but I may be dramatizing the translation like I always enjoy doing) for only Y3500 between 6 and 9. That sounds like amazing value if you just want to get wasted.

The bartender was funny in a clueless sorta way. He didn’t have many mixers, and was trying to be helpful but couldn’t really suggest anything useful. Then the owner came back from somewhere and started berating him. In the end he went down the street to AMPM to buy some juice! Ahhhh, Japan.

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