This website is not featuring chain-Izakaya, however, there is one positive fact about chain-Izakaya that has to be mentioned: Many of them offer a non-smoking section or non-smoking seats.
Smoking is really the dark chapter of the Izakaya-story. Have you ever been sitting at the counter of a nice Izakaya, your neighbors to the left and to the right being chain-smokers ? And all the smoke floating inavoidably in your direction ? So you know what I mean. Its about time to fight for a non-smoking environment !!
To the authors best knowledge there are currently no traditional Izakaya with a strict non-smoking policy and only a few offering a non-smoking section. However, some Izakaya are almost smoke-free due to the seating arrangement, efficient ventilation and / or a high percentage of non-smoking guests.
In order to give an indication how smoky a place usually is, the review pages of Izakayasanpo show a “smoke detector”: Izakaya with a non-smoking section or non-smoking seats (red non-smoking sign), Izakaya with smoking allowed but almost smoke-free (1 cigarette), Izakaya that can be smoky if you are unlucky (2 cigarettes) and Izakaya where you can’t escape the smoke (3 cigarettes).
