[Liongale]

I remember reading another viewpoint about such a refusal of service in such places (it may have even been in Dave Barry's book he wrote about visiting Japan, I can't remember).

It was about: it wasn't a matter of being against foreigners, but rather the people do not know how to accommodate those outside their language/culture- so rather instead of running into an embarassing situation, they refuse service outright- which to the business owner's viewpoint was the 'polite' thing to do.