What is the significance of the curtainy-bannery thing over the door of many Japanese restaurants? I’ve seen them in Thai restaurants too.
shellity
The name for them (in Japanese) is a noren. Sometimes they have the shop name printed on them, sometimes they just mention what kind of food the restaurant sells.
I’m not really sure about any significance, but they’re used kind of like “open for business” signs. When then shop takes them down, you know they’re closing for the night.
Come on, admit it Sublight. The real reason is to hide those @#&^@#* low doorways that restaurants in Tokyo have, so that us gaijin whap our foreheads on the frames. 
In order to add something actually useful to this thread, you might want to check out a little information about noren and nawanoren here.
Sublight beats me to it yet again sigh
Oh yeah, forgot about that. *Irasshaima-*whack!:smack:
Aside from a good reason to use smacky, that implies that the proprieter is whacking customers as they come in!
Which begs the question, why are the doorways to some Japanese restaurants so low and narrow?