Host Club

A host club is where hosts, male cast members, sit at guests' tables to talk and drink with them; the guests are mostly women. It holds the same hospitality licence as a hostess club and is subject to the same closing-hour rules. On a first visit you pay a cheap, time-limited first-visit price, meet several hosts and choose your tanto at the end; from then on you nominate him each time.

The bill is a set fee or table charge plus bottles and champagne, service charge and tax. The showy champagne calls and champagne towers are tied to a culture in which guests order expensive bottles to push their tanto's sales up.

Tabs (urikake), where the bill is paid later, drew public attention as a cause of guests' debts, and have led to industry moves to abolish tabs and to tougher regulation through amendments to the Amusement Business Act. Always confirm prices on the spot and stay within what you can pay.