Weekend Garage Tokyo

My «local» bar in Ebisu/​Daikinyama, just a few minutes walk from home. One of the best places in Tokyo to hang out, drink with fiends, listen to good music and generally while away a few hours. Very cool décor, reasonable drink prices. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad that the food isn’t very good because if it was then I’d probably never be able to get a seat here!
My tip: enjoy drinking at Weekend Garage Tokyo but if you get hungry pop down the road to Pizza Slice for a quick delicious NYC style slice before your next round of cocktails or coronas back at WGT.

I walked past Weekend Garage Tokyo while exploring the Ebisu area and thought it looked intriguing. We returned for dinner on a rainy evening and were only one of two parties in the place at 7 – 8 pm. WGT has live music once or twice each week and we there on a night without music so maybe that was why it wasn’t crowded.
For dinner we ordered the lemon herb chicken and the bacon egg burger. Both were ¥1080 which is really reasonable for dinner. We also got a shandy gaff and a ginger ale, which were ¥750 and ¥550, which was pretty expensive, especially for just a bottled ginger ale.
The food had generous portions and was clearly made to order. The lemon chicken was some of the best grilled chicken I’ve ever had; they managed to render the fat underneath the skin so the skin crisped on the grill without the meat drying out. The potatoes underneath were pan roasted and were plain but good, although they could have used a bit more salt for me. The chicken seemed like a very French preparation, with simply prepared and well seasoned meat, paired with potatoes.
Two drinks and two entrees was around $ 30, which isn’t terrible but also isn’t cheap. There is definitely a certain irony to opening a garage-​themed store in Tokyo, where no one has a garage. In America, half the breweries are in garages out of necessity, yet WGT has clearly worked very hard to create a garage aesthetic in a Japanese way, meaning it feels like a garage but doesn’t look like one. It’s also huge by Tokyo standards and in an interesting industrial area. This certainly wouldn’t be a first stop for a tourist but if you’re here a bit longer and want to see a unique newer concept it’s worth a stop.