College girl hostess opens luxury restaurant in Shibuya

Young entrepreneurs are always worthy of praise. Young female entrepreneurs perhaps especially so. But the response to Mizuho Ieiri has been more muted, particularly among male netizens.

The International Christian University student has just opened a luxury Korean BBQ restaurant in Shibuya, central Tokyo, using ¥60 million of her own money.

Aiming to become financially independent and retire early, the 24-year-old has spent six years at the prestigious college but has still not graduated because she was so busy working. Doing what? Well, she wasn’t interning at an office (or, thankfully, doing compensated dating like many of her peers) but working as a hostess.

From the age of 20, she worked as a hostess at a club in Roppongi, putting in the hours six nights a week and earning sales of ¥12 million a month for the club. Her highest sales record was a whopping ¥16.8 million in a single month.

She earned as much as ¥80 million in four years, leaving her with around ¥60 million after she had paid taxes and made some investments. She used most of this to launch her restaurant, Gyutan no Lemon, which specializes in thick cuts of beef tongue.

Given her backstory and the success of the Shinjuku restaurant in the same franchise, the opening has attracted quite a lot of media attention. Let’s hope all those long nights entertaining male clients at her club prove worth the risk of launching a restaurant in uncertain economic times.

She now dresses more conservatively, presenting herself as an intelligent and reliable young businesswoman. In her photo portrait from her Roppongi hostess days, she looks rather different.

We wonder if Ieiri will be on-site much, greeting and serving customers. We suspect a lot of men attracting to her story (and to her) will be hoping to catch a glimpse between courses.

Today, despite her wealth, Ieiri lives in a small apartment in Fuchu, west Tokyo, and continues to attend ICU.