“While it is unimaginable that you might one day hear the person on the stool next to you at the local tavern say, "How 'bout another sake, and one for my pal?," it is possible that the heretofore misunderstood or unknown rice-based alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin will become a mainstream libation and perhaps even hip.” - The Chicago Tribune (2011) The server the article was posted on isn’t even in service but the echo still lives on google. Between 19, the Chicago economy lost close to a quarter of a million manufacturing jobs, a striking loss by any standards.” - Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (1990)Īnother article from the same year from the Chicago Tribune only eludes to the wild nights that the interior must have seen as Japanese salaryman lifestyles collided with Chicago’s busy nightlife to create decadent sake-drenched neon-soaked soirees that exemplified the excess of the 80s. However, in 1980, employment in services' matched and subsequently surpassed employment in manufacturing. In the post-World War II period, up to the last decade, manufacturing had been Chicago's major employer. “The most extreme changes took place in the Chicago labor market. With US cities struggling, the arrival of Japanese businesses and expansion of corporate jobs was a welcome addition to Chicago, which invariably led to the culturally necessary venue, Cafe Shino, to open its doors to the city.Īn article about Cafe Shiro from 1987 reads: “Long a staple of Tokyo nightlife, Karaoke at Cafe Shino has become a link to home for 5,600 Japanese nationals now living in the nation’s third-largest city as the struggling Midwest industrial corridor welcomes Japanese plants and job opportunities.” - AP News (1987)Ĭhicago in the 1980s had experienced a tremendous loss of manufacturing jobs, which led to the economic crisis that allowed for Japanese markets to begin proliferating in the city shortly after the Plaza Accord. With the massive influx of Japanese workers who migrated to the city to work for the more than 400 Japanese companies that were located in Chicago at the time, the demand for Karaoke to accommodate homesick Japanese was fulfilled by Cafe Shino’s promise of ever-flowing sake and interiors reminiscent of glitzy Tokyo bars.Ĭoinciding with the Japanese Asset Bubble and the City Pop music phenomenon in the far East, Cafe Shino was a representation of the affluence and rapidly accelerating acquisition of American companies, warehouses, and factories by the newly empowered Japanese conglomerates catalyzed by the Plaza Accord in 1985 which depreciated the American dollar in favor of the Japanese yen, which is said to have contributed to Japan’s economic crash going into the 90s. The establishment was originally known as Café Shino, est 1986, which had been a popular sing-along bar where salarymen in the city were known to let loose after work. Murasaki Sake Lounge is located in Chicago’s historic Streeterville neighborhood and tucked beneath the towering buildings of downtown Chicago.
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