Pandemic leaves hostess bar king Hiro Noda pouring his own drinks
Sydney’s longest running hostess club which once saw 30 women tend to guests a night under the nose of the CBD has closed.
For almost 30 years, the Crescent ramen restaurant in the heart of Sydney’s CBD led a double life.
After 5pm each night, the noodles were packed away and the underground bar became a hostess lounge – once one of many dotted around the city.
But when Hiro Noda, 51, shuttered Crescent at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, it put an end to what was once a plentiful – if little mentioned – bar circuit.
His family opened their first in inner-city Potts Point in 1990, just a year after arriving from Tokyo. “That was the golden era of hostess culture,” Mr Noda said.
Inside, women would sit beside guests, pouring drinks, playing drinking games and tending to numerous high-profile visitors.
Some – but not Crescent – offered karaoke.
Those to frequent these places included prominent businessmen and, on occasion, politicians and sportsmen. Even Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates, a friend of the Noda family, would visit with Japanese sporting officials.
Now Mr Noda and his wife, Yukari, are out – having coughed up three months’ rent at half-pay and called it quits in March 2020, at the end of a 10-year lease.
Today, they pour their own drinks at a new venue, the Nodaya Dining Bar in Pyrmont.
Mr Noda said when he first joined the family business – at 19 – there were at least seven similar venues across Sydney from Cremorne, Neutral Bay to the city.
“In 1990s, 80 per cent (of staff were) local, 20 per cent were Japanese. As we got older, the customers demanded more Japanese girls especially after 5pm,” he said. “They wanted to speak Japanese.”
Hostess clubs were so popular at the time that customers would bounce from one to another as they would nightclubs. “We were always throwing customers and catching customers,” he said.
While most hostess clubs didn’t survive the late 90s, Mr Noda’s did and then two decades until the pandemic struck.
That was when many hostesses, usually international students or those with working holiday visas, returned to Japan.
Border closures kept the usual clientele away too, he said.
Mr Noda – whose family comes from Tokyo’s Roppongi night-life district and owns an almost century-old restaurant called Otako in the nearby Ginza district – can’t help but remember Crescent fondly.
The clubs would hold corporate events and lavish birthday parties. Halloween and Valentine’s Day were particularly special, Mr Noda said.
“Every year we had Christmas party for the clients where we hired Brazilian dancers and magicians and would play games.”
The hostesses were managed by women within the family who went under the name “mamasan”.
“My mum was the first mamasan, then my brother’s wife and later my wife,” he said. “In Japanese nightclubs, mamasan is the boss, we obey her. She’s the big boss, I was the small boss.”
The clubs once made a small fortune. A two-hour table charge would set a customer back $160 at Crescent, not including their own drinks or those of the women who accompanied them.
“Some customers spent up to $1000 a night,” Mr Noda said.
Nodaya is somewhat different. The average spend is between $110 and $200 over the same period. And bring your own company.
At Crescent, one of the most popular dishes among guests had been karaage chicken. At Nodaya, it’s softshell crab tacos.
Asked would he open another hostess bar, Mr Noda said: “To be honest, I’m much happier running this business. I’ve probably graduated from Crescent.
“Crescent was very good … I wanted to do it but now I think after a year away … I’ve had enough,” he said.
While some customers have followed Mr Noda to Pyrmont, many have disappeared, some to their home countries. “My clientele is a total 180 degrees different from what I used to serve,” he said.
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