When Will Ryan moved to Tokyo from Tipperary, a county in the Irish hinterlands, he started out in as familiar a territory as he could find. Perhaps working in an Irish bar, however, was the only way to make the transition smooth.
It all came about in 2002, when a global hospitality recruiter visited the bar Ryan was working in, Tigh Neachtains in Galway City. What started out with a gin and tonic and some over-the-counter raconteuring, soon developed into an opportunity to move to Japan. Though Ryan spoke not a word of Japanese at the time, within the year he was pulling pints in The Shannon’s in Osaki, a bar where he would remain for the next decade.
“But I always wanted to have my own pub since I started working in them at 18-years-old,” Ryan, now 42, tells me over roast pork and pints of Guinness in his own bar in Sendagaya. “So I looked into it and found that it was a lot cheaper to do it in Japan than it was back home.”
Ryan teamed up with fellow bartender Chieko Isshiki and chef Atsushi Karino, both of whom worked at The Shannon’s partner bar, The Roundstone in Shinagawa, to turn his once-youthful vision into a brick-and-mortar reality.
The result was An Solas, the only Irish-owned Irish bar in Tokyo, which opened for business in 2014 and remains a popular drinking and dining establishment among local office workers and the international community.
Last summer, Ryan launched a new business venture, Japan Hospitality Consultants (JHC), to help nurture the next generation of foreign-owned hospitality businesses in Japan. Through JHC, Ryan gives advice on overcoming the initial hurdles of opening a bar, cafe, restaurant or live music venue, with particular emphasis on “knowing your numbers” to avoid becoming another statistic.
Though the idea came about serendipitously, it also stemmed from his desire to share knowledge accrued over 20 years in the industry — a result of “classic Irish guilt” he reckons — and to combat the deluge of inaccurate advice online.
“I never really thought about consultancy to be honest, until I got a job with the Irish Olympic Committee,” Ryan says. The committee wanted to open up an Irish Olympic House in Tokyo, a place for people to get a feel for the country and to cheer on Irish athletes during Tokyo 2020.
COVID-19 ensured that didn’t work out as planned, but Ryan says he “really enjoyed” the experience of consulting and liaising between the committee and Japan-based suppliers at a time when the prospect of a business-as-usual Olympics was still on the cards.
“That kind of gave me the initial idea to start (JHC),” he says. “Then I googled ‘How to open your own Irish bar or restaurant in Japan?’ and I couldn’t believe the amount of false information out there. I just thought, ‘What are these people talking about?’”
Information online was often anecdotal and through unverified sources on public forums. With many commenters either fear-mongering or writing from perspectives that reflected no real insight into the industry in Japan, Ryan decided to consolidate his own repository of information into a more digestible blueprint.
Ryan, who has been consulting with business hopefuls on a near-weekly basis since JHC’s founding, gives away most of the information for free on the company website. He then charges those who are still serious about launching their business and want more comprehensive guidance for one-to-one consultations.
His areas of expertise are financing and loans, obtaining the appropriate visa, logistics of establishing a company, finding the right location, the requisite licensing procedures, creating a business plan and translation help. All of which are vital steps on the journey.
Sometimes the consultations flower into robust business plans, other times clients realize they’ve underestimated the enterprise of launching their own bar or restaurant and bow out after one meeting. But this is indicative of Ryan’s blunt consultancy style. He makes no concessions and is upfront about the realities of the hospitality business.
“I just don’t want to see people get burned,” he says. “But there’s also a misconception ... people don’t realize how much it’s actually going to cost; they have no idea of the financial side of it. The costs are so high just to keep the place running.
“The numbers are not going to lie to you, it doesn’t matter how passionate or motivated you are ... you can expect to lose money in the first two years,” he continues. “But as long as there’s progress, and you can see that progress, and the customer base is growing, then you know you’re on the right track.”
There are other unforeseen difficulties, chief of which, is whether a prospective business owner is going into it alone or with partners. And if it’s the latter, then Ryan encourages the partners to have the necessary “tough conversations” with each other, and to do it early.
“You need to know at which point you will decide to stop. Say you decide to spend ¥30 million on a club in Shibuya or Shinjuku. Then, a year in, it’s still eating money. Do you decide to put in another ¥10 million? What if the ¥40 million is gone? Do you put in another 10?” he says. “People get really stressed about this kind of stuff. But before signing anything, these are the conversations they need to have to see if they’re all on the same page.”
The pitfalls of starting a business in a foreign country will always be manifold — especially in a place renowned for mountains of red tape and bureaucratic inexpediency — and the pandemic has made things no easier. After losing 220,000 hotel and restaurant sector workers last year, the remaining 3.69 million figure was the lowest since 2002, reflecting the number of businesses shutting up shop — 715 dining establishments filed for bankruptcy in 2020 alone. But Ryan is proof that there are success stories.
An Solas, despite weathering a tough couple years upon opening, and the subsequent travails of COVID-19, is still one of the most popular Irish pubs in the country. During our conversation on a muggy Wednesday afternoon, the tables are populated with diners, while regulars drop by at intervals to chew the rag with the bar’s proprietor.
“(When starting) An Solas, I didn’t see any other options for myself, because I’ve been a bartender since I was 18. But you have to work hard,” Ryan says. “I got married in August 2014 and we opened a month later, so I put all my savings into this while my wife was at home by herself six days a week. Starting a business in Japan is definitely a lifestyle choice.”
For more information on Japan Hospitality Consultants, visit www.japanhospitalityconsultants.com. Will Ryan can also be contacted via email at: [email protected]. An Solas is located at 5-22-3 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.
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