Restaurant serves all the food and drinks it promises, but the eye candy isn’t quite what it seems.

There’re really very few times in Japan where you have to be thirsty or sober. Not only is the country incredibly tolerant of drinking, bars and pubs are all over the urban landscape, often crammed into commercial spaces so small there aren’t even room for chairs.

But from a business owner’s standpoint, that presents a bit of a problem. How do you convince salarymen stopping off for a cold one on their way home from work to come into your bar as opposed to one of your countless competitors? If you’re the owner of Toriemon, a pub photographed by Japanese Twitter user @yukochi9118 in Miyazaki City, you let it be known that there’s not just alcohol to be found inside your bar, but also a leggy woman in a form-fitting minidress.

The site of the woman and her high hemline quickly had @yukochi9118 stepping though the cloth noren awning and into the restaurant, which specializes in chicken wings, one of Miyazaki Prefectures favorite foods. Once inside though, he found out he’d been tricked, as the legs and body didn’t belong to a flesh and blood woman, but a shapely mannequin, or possibly love doll.

Granted, after stepping past the noren and seeing that there in fact wasn’t a hot girl drinking at the bar, customers still have the option of turning around and walking right back out. But whether because they’re too embarrassed to admit what pulled them in, or out of impressed respect for the clever bit of marketing, several customers then decide to stick around for a drink or two. “Aside from myself, a few other people had fallen into the trap,” says @yukochi9118.

Other Twitter users chimed in with:

“Yep, that’d totally fool me.”
“Is that one of Oriental Industry’s love dolls?”
“I’ve got a thing for mannequins, so I’d totally have to go inside.”
“I wonder if this will also make more women feel less self-conscious about stopping in for a drink here by themselves?”

Luckily, @yukochi9118 says that the food and drinks were tasty and reasonably priced, so while the eye candy he’d been expecting turned out to be a ruse, at least this bar delivered on what bars are actually supposed to supply. As for those who simply can’t entertain the thought of dining or drinking without beautiful women in their immediate vicinity, maybe they’ll have to make the trip up to Tokyo’s breast slash café when it opens next month.

Restaurant information
Toriemon / 鳥衛門
Address: Miyazaki-ken, Miyazaki-shi, Tachibana Nishi 3-5-4, Takayama Building 1st floor
宮崎県宮崎市橘通西3-5-4 高山ビル1F
Open 5 p.m.-1 a.m.
Website (Tabelog)

Sources: Twitter/@yukochi9118, Tabelog