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If you’ve ever been on the job hunt, you know it’s enough to drive you to drink, and one Japanese bar is leaning into that part of the journey by offering free drinks to anyone considering quitting their job. 

The result is an utterly unique local watering hole where you can not only commiserate with your fellow working stiffs, but you might just walk away with a job lead from one of the bartenders, who just happen to be career counselors.

Japan’s Tenshoku Sodan Bar offers free drinks to anyone thinking of quitting their job.

At first blush, Tenshoku Sodan Bar is a local tavern like any other, but it’s more like a recruiting agency with a bar installed as the place’s name suggests: Tenshoku Sodan Bar is Japanese for “Job-Changing Consultation Bar,” and it offers exactly what it says on the sign (if you read Japanese, anyway).

The owners of the bar, which is located right by the main train station in Yokohama, have aimed their watering hole at an oft-forgotten grey area of the career path, the middle ground between loving your job and hating it so much you are about to Kool-Aid man through the nearest wall and run off into the sunset.

Tenshoku Sodan Bar is for people who are more in the “meh” place with their job, or are ready to move on but don’t quite know how to begin the process. And it turns out Tenshoku’s bartenders are uniquely equipped to help with that question.

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All Tenshoku Sodan Bar’s bartenders are professional career counselors.

All of Tenshoku Sodan Bar’s staff are part of the team at Japanese staffing agency LIA, which, of course, raises the question of why people who wanted a staffing agency’s services wouldn’t just, you know, book an appointment.

But the staff says that’s not quite the service they’re trying to offer. Rather, they’re trying to create a space that neither a bar nor a staffing agency is exactly suited to. Namely, a place where people can commiserate and drown their sorrows, but also network, collaborate, and discuss their career direction.

Notably, around 60% of the bar’s patrons say they’re actually NOT ready to say “I quit” yet, and so the bar’s low-stakes environment, where, unlike at an actual staffing agency, there is an expectation that you’re ready for a new gig right here and right now, provides a place to kick around ideas.

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Patrons can even book private one-on-one sessions with the bartenders for advice.

Perhaps the best part of Tenshoku Sodan Bar is that you can get real, specialized advice from an actual career counselor on the more abstract parts of career-planning. Patrons can book a private one-on-one conversation with one of the recruiter/bartender hybrids for privacy, and can pick their brains for advice rather than straight-up job leads.

No need to write or update a resume, no need to “pitch” yourself, no need, even, to have any idea what you want to do next! You can simply discuss your career trajectory, what you do and don’t like about your job, and how to take the next steps.

Patrons and staffers say the bar also provides an aspect that can be really hard to come by in any other setting: impartiality. Our friends and family always have lots of opinions about our careers that stem from their personal perceptions of us, of course. And actual recruiters are ultimately just trying to make a commission. There’s neither of those at the bar.

Of course, there’s always the chance that one of the recruiters or fellow patrons WILL have an actual picture-perfect job for whoever wanders into the bar. But sometimes the low-stakes, low-pressure environment Tenshoku Shodan Bar is trying to provide is exactly what people need to open their minds to new opportunities. And if nothing else, you can at least drink your job woes away!

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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.