the staff member who walked me there personally was part of the markup the whole time

guy outside a different bar offered to personally walk me to "a better place" since his bar was full. seemed like a nice gesture. found out after paying ¥24,000 that he gets a cut for bringing customers in, which explains why the place suddenly had way higher prices once we sat down 😤 the personal touch was the scam mechanism the whole time. feel naive in hindsight