Not all visitors are created equal. I’ve been traveling to Japan for 25 years and know how to behave, how to blend in and how to conduct myself in a restaurant. When we are traveling, we rarely go places that have a lot of tourists, in Japan we look for local festivals, off the beaten path places, and especially restaurants that tourists are unaware of. In July we were able to visit Senso-Ji and go into the main prayer hall in the back for private prayer and out the side to avoid the crowds, only 3 others were inside with us. It made for an entirely different experience vs the thousands outside.

I’ve witnessed enough bad behavior in my travels, including inside restaurants, and just prefer to avoid that stress.

So for that reason, I would prefer to avoid restaurants that are on the tourist radar screen, even if it means the owner is not visitor friendly or only accepts our reservation grudgingly.