Have a seat. It's your living room.

Most towns in Japan, even the dustier nooks of the big metropolises, still have a family-run eatery. But as you can imagine the large conglomerate chains with plastic menus and push-button microwaved entrees are fast devouring these small players.

You would know the eatery by its attention to food, often at the expense of interior, which can be stained, run down, and highly individualized. The eatery still makes dishes order by order and sloshes drinks together from the bottle unmeasured and with plastic or wooden stirrers. Owners often know each of their customers by name.

My eatery is Yamazono. I started having several dinners a week in this izakaya about 20 years ago, and was quickly accepted by the aging husband and wife proprietors as well as their 30 or so regulars.

The walls are covered in yellowed strips of paper that show the scribbled names and prices of menu items. Several of the prices are x’d over and replaced with slightly higher numbers—I think years ago Yamazono’s owners gave up rewriting the strips. Here and there you might also notice photos or signatures of famous people that have stopped in—once a well-known soccer coach came. I also love the large ink-blot print of a fish that was once carved up here.

Two cemented-in customers are young, bright faced Yasue and her pony-tailed husband Keita. I believe they are at Yamazono each night—probably because neither cook. Unlike most customers, they immediately gravitate toward the shop’s tatami mat seats while eschewing the more popular small-group tables. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Yasue and Keita sit at any of the six bar counter seats near the entrance.

Yasue stands out for her cheeriness. Unlike most 30-something Japanese she converses comfortably with all fellow customers whether they are older, younger, or even of a different nationality. I might call across the cramped space to her and say, “Yasue-chan, I went to the other izakaya you recommended in Hatsudai. I got the ramen.” She lights up, meets my eyes, and asks with true interest what I thought of the spot. She wants to know what I ordered and did I like the sake they serve. Keita is listening but he is shier, a regular quiet male. He continues to surf his mobile phone but it’s clear he’s tuning in to our conversation. He is amused as we discuss a funky lady who works at the ramen joint.

Yasue has awful pollen allergies every March and April. She really suffers. The poor girl’s nose and mouth are bundled under no less than three cotton masks during those months. She also wears goggled glasses that I suppose block the pollen from reaching her eyes. But she doesn’t let the misery stop her or Keita—they both still come to Yamazono, and she happily engages with the room’s conversations even while blotting an almost steady stream of salty water dripping from her pink eyes.

Regulars come in many forms at Yamazono. They are singletons, couples, and sometimes small tight-knit groups of friends or office colleagues. What’s rare is when we see an entirely new face show up.

I enjoy guessing about my neighborhood dining partners’ lives. Keita and Yasue are, I’m sure, a contented couple. You just don’t see that sort of comradery, that mutual affection much in Japan. They live for evenings, and while they like to drink sake and shochu cocktails, they really are out and about for the food. Ask them which neighborhood restaurant makes, say, tempura the best and they can go on and on discussing crispiness, quality of oil, or seasonality of menus. (Well, Yasue goes on at length. Keita nods and occasionally chuckles in support.)

There are two older ladies that come most every Wednesday night. If they are not twins, they certainly must be sisters. They live together at the same home they were born in some 70 years ago. I don’t know their name but I call them the Naito Sisters. They just look like that name. Though Yamazono is a smoky, oily, and creakingly dilapidated izakaya, the Naito Sisters dress quite carefully when they visit. They wear pressed cotton dresses with dainty floral patterns and old lady leather shoes that are always polished. They both carry small designer handbags that I’m sure were bought in a top department store back in the day.

The Naito Sisters scream old-money, but they order the same drinks and food we all do. Grilled fishes, rice balls, pickles, and deep-fried chicken. I’ve on occasion caught them picking up a wing or a fried potato with their fingers but they very carefully touch up with oshibori towels before continuing on with their utensils. The Naitos will only sit at one of the small group tables and they stay hours into the night. They both drink an impressive amount, but never get even the slightest messy. They are almost wordless observers of the room. When they do quietly chit chat to each other, it’s my guess they are discussing rent increases for the 20 shops and apartment buildings they must own throughout this ward.

Yamazono opened 46 years ago according to Katsuaki and Hiroko Maejima, the husband and wife owners. They are now in their seventies and still working each night except Sundays. I was tipsy once and a bit too forward so I asked the Maejimas how they first met. It was through a matchmaker, he said. Keita was from Fukushima and Hiroko grew up far away on the other side of the country in Kyushu. Who knows what about that geographically dispersed background was considered a match, but it seems to have worked.

They have three children and six grandkids. Nobody in their clan seems interested in joining the restaurant business, except Kotaro, a rather hulking grandchild who has just entered high school. Kotaro seems to love the izakaya work, running dishes and booze through the tiny shop as customers yell out their orders. He can only help his grandpa and grandma during school holiday breaks and the occasional Saturday night as of course studies take precedence.

The customers call Hiroko and Katsuaki “Mama” and “Papa,” and I’m pleased to say that despite their advanced years both are fit and strong. Forty plus years working on your feet must do that.

He takes the food side. I wouldn’t say Papa is a chef, but rather an expert preparer and assembler. He slices up many of the sashimi orders straight from the whole fish—if you order aji sashimi, for instance, he reaches into his countertop fridge and pulls a freshly caught mackerel out to begin slicing.

Chop! Off with the head. Chop! Off with the tail. And in seconds Papa’s large pro knife is splitting the fish’s body lengthwise to reveal and remove the bones and innards. In no more than five minutes a beautifully arranged plate of four or five types of sashimi is produced together with perfectly posed seaweed, radish, and shiso garnish. Yamazono’s fridge is re-stocked daily and most often carries squid, octopus, brazed bonito, and fatty tuna, in addition to one or two seasonal specialties of the week.

Papa is also in charge of the open grill by the shop’s sliding plastic front window which he often opens to vent smoke or to catch a needed cool breeze from the small street outside. He throws full fish or chicken wings and skewers straight onto the grill to jostle and turn until browned. The walls of the kitchen are dark gold—thickly coated with years of smoke and grease. To his left is a single deep fryer as well as an always-heated wok for quick stirring and brazing of pork and vegetables.

It’s funny. I rarely see Papa outside his “kitchen,” which is really not more than a three-meter-long workman’s slot with a rubber mat floor. He is mostly barricaded from view by stacked baskets of today’s vegetables, a plastic tub of live loaches (for deep frying), piles of dishware, a toaster, bottles of booze, glass wear, and that fish refrigerator. I can see his head and face moving left and right and can shout to him through the obstacles, but he could be wearing only underwear back there and I would never know. One late evening after Yamazono closed I ran into Mama and Papa as they were locking the door and getting on bicycles to ride home for the night. I was startled to see how tiny they both are. I learned that when in his kitchen Papa actually wears wooden Japanese stilt sandals, or geta, as he works with the food. Roasting chicken sticks he looks to be a substantial guy, but out on the street in his flat tennis shoes I see his height challenge—Papa might have difficulty getting admitted to some rides at Tokyo Disneyland.

Mama is the one everyone remembers though at Yamazono. Her humor is a bit bawdy, she is truly gregarious, and she knows everyone and everything that might have happened or will likely happen in the neighborhood. She has what I’d call a jolly but slightly evil laugh…sort of heh heh heh. Like all great Mamas, Hiroko is never in a mood, and it’s fun to see her take a break at the tables with friends who sometimes drop into the shop for an evening snack. She sits with “the gals” and gossips and drinks heartily. In fact, when Hiroko’s friends are in Yamazono, it can be difficult for us other customers to place orders that break through their rowdiness.

As you may have guessed, Mama is in charge of the drinks while Papa gets the food prepped and served. Mama hustles and shuffles back and forth all night long in the shop’s cramped floorspace pouring draught beers and mixing lemon sodas. She bends over deep to pull bottles of Coke and soda water out from a stash zone below the tatami mats. She sloshes out hot and cold sake and prepares small ice buckets and stirrers for customers who want to fix their own drinks from bought bottles of shochu. Mama is a stocky lady, but not fat. I think her daily calorie burn is way too high for her to ever become overweight.

I once asked her about Fujio-san, a counter customer who comes almost every night to Yamazono to eat and drink alone. “Oh Fujio? He got booted out of his place by his wife—not sure what happened there—but after trying several restaurants on this street seems to have set up camp here,” she said. “He really likes you and Toru, by the way. Told me that.” Fujio-san drinks to excess, and while those sorts of Japanese often wander through a neighborhood making stops into several shops and bars along the way, he plants himself at Yamazono and doesn’t leave until his speaking becomes quite hard to understand. He’s a very nice teddy bear…with issues.

I think it was on a night just past the nuclear accident in 2011 that I came to more fully understand Yamazono’s owners. Toru and I were sitting at the counter, and through the barricade of stacked plates, glass ware, and the tub of loaches on the counter, we spoke to Papa about those rather dark days. Unlike Mama, Papa never speaks about specific customers or their habits, but on this night I think we touched a nerve. I mentioned how many people had left or had disappeared from their work. He grumbled and said, “You get to know people when the chips are down.” I asked him to elaborate. Papa said he saw irrational panic, cowardice, and un-neighborly hoarding. He told us of many empty nights at Yamazono and of friends saying that the shop should close “out of respect” for many that had died in the tsunami hundreds of miles north. “Hey, I’d like to show my respect for five years, but can I?” he asked. “We had to make a living.”

It was a sore point. We moved the conversation on. But I felt in that moment Mama and Papa were speaking to us like friends.

Many independently run izakaya like Yamazono have a television running in the corner. I asked another owner once why was that—like for special programs or sports events? He said, no, really the TVs are to make the shop feel like home. “I want my place to be a living room for our customers,” he said.

Yamazono’s crappy Toshiba television is always on. The sound is just loud enough that you can follow the program if you concentrate. Otherwise, the TV is just furniture with content that blends into the din of the evening.

Interestingly, TVs in izakaya will never be turned to news. Mama once told me, “News is too un-fun. And arguments can happen.” I think she’s right. No one wants to sit with neighbors hearing about molestation arrests and Japan’s latest bribery scandal. So Mama tunes the set to mindless variety shows and widely popular game and quiz programs. Sometimes if the mood is right the room watches together, with customers calling out answers to quizzes or discussing personal preferences about the goods being hawked during the commercials. It is much like…well, a living room.

Papa grumbles sometimes under his breath when Yamazono is packed and the orders come too thick and quick. But you can tell—he and Mama are proud of what they have built. They are a fixture that this small corner of Tokyo needs.

They do have one worry, however. While they clearly will be handing over the reins to grandson Kotaro when the time comes, the creaky wooden building itself where Yamazono has been for 46 years, will likely be torn down. A very nice lady, Mrs. Uno, who lives around the corner from Yamazono is the owner and sadly is already at least 90 years old. Her son, who no one really likes around these parts, is chomping at the bit to inherit each of her small shop properties, raze them, and sell off the land to developers. He’s already kicked out a loved dry cleaner across the street and one can sense him rubbing his paws together at the thought of clear-cutting Yamazono for the cash.

For now however we will all continue to congregate and to love our “living room.” The lemon shochus will be poured and the smoke from grilled chicken and rice cakes will continue to waft into the small shopping street every night except Sunday. Nobody really speaks about the end that will indeed come.