Smoking Room
The local Subway Sandwich shop had a renovation recently, and when they re-opened, they still didn’t have a toasting oven. But they did have what is pictured above: they walled off one side of the restaurant and made it the smoking area. Completely sealed it off, glass walls and door.
This is rare if not unheard-of in Japan. If a restaurant has a no-smoking section, then it is almost always a corner of the room, and if you’re lucky then there is an air conditioning unit in the ceiling which generally blows the smoky air away from your direction. But usually you are simply in a smoking room where the smokers don’t sit right next to you. At best, if the restaurant has more than one room, one might be a no-smoking room–but don’t bet on it. Starbucks really brought something new to Japan with the whole no-smoking-period policy.
For this Subway shop to have a walled-off room like this was really a surprise.
So, naturally, they usually have the door propped open.
This sort of thing is not uncommon in Korea, or at least in Seoul. However the Subway shop near where I stay closed down about 6 months ago.
I seem to recall a few cafes and restaurants in Tokyo with no-smoking and smoking separated by floor. With this design though sometimes you run into the problem of having the smoking floor as the first floor so it all rises through the other levels. The last Mos Burger I went to was like that.
China so far has very few restaurants with segregated seating . Most who have tried this idea are Western restaraunts such as Da Marco Italian Cuisine. They put all smokers upstairs since smoke rises.
Starbucks is still a non-smoking establishment, so I can always breathe easily there. Other than that, China is a smoker’s dream come true. Most govt officials do not take the problem seriously since most of them are smokers themselves.
Local Chinese food joints and bars are often so thick with smoke that it really interferes with my enjoyment of the meal. Now I have gotten smarter. I find a seat next to a window and open the window whenever someone lights up. The blast of cold air is often enough to ‘send a signal’ to the smoking party.
My (non-smoking) father came to visit me in China last year and said:
“China is a heaven for smokers; you don’t even need to bring your own cigarettes!”
Cheers!