Hi all, long time reader, first time poster.
I've been studying Japanese for a while in my own naive way and while I've made a lot of strides in some areas, I keep stumbling on basic real-world stuff such as this.

If you're in a restaurant/bar and want to call for service, what are the most common words and expressions to use? I specifically mean names to call the owner/chef/waiter by. I know I can just say "sumimasen" or yell out something indistinct, but is it commonplace or appropriate to just call them "ojisan/okusan" or "musumesan" if you're feeling bold? What about "taishou" (大将)? In general, what's the most common option? I would imagine just "sumimasen" would do in classier establishments, correct?

It may sound like a really silly question but Japanese business owners in and outside of Japan are always really happy to hear a Westerner speak any Japanese at all, so I never managed to quite make sure.

In a restaurant/izakaya/bar, just shout すみません

If you want to refer to the owner of a small place you call him/her マスター

Thanks - then if I'm not specifically calling for service, but just making conversation with the owner, マスター is the way to go? If it's a waiter, is おじさん more or less weird than あなた? E.g. in a random question like おじさんの出身は？
Is 大将 even used? I think I heard one older Japanese guy use it once but I may be wrong.

You should just avoid all these terms. You use すみません (or, more likely, すいません) when you need someone's attention, and there's generally no need to refer to people by a title, name, or second person pronoun. (E.g., if you want to know where someone is from you say "ご出身はどこですか？" Both おじさんの出身はどこですか and あなたの出身はどこですか would normally be strange.) Remember that in Japanese subjects and objects are dropped when not needed, and using subjects and objects often, like in English, sounds unnatural. If you ask someone a question, they know who you're referring to because you're talking to them--you would only have to switch the topic back to them if you previously were talking about someone else.

マスター is indeed a word that gets thrown around a lot, but only in certain types of bars. Unless you've been to enough bars to figure out when it might be used it's a pretty useless word.

Now, I do use some of them, but only in certain situations and I favor certain words (for example, I'm way more likely to refer to a youngish woman as お姉さん than a middle-aged man as おじさん). But I think it's a better-safe-than-sorry sort of thing.

Tzadeck Wrote:マスター is indeed a word that gets thrown around a lot, but only in certain types of bars.

I've never heard this term used outside of shinsaibashi in Osaka. I'm guessing this is a kansai thing?

tokyostyle Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:マスター is indeed a word that gets thrown around a lot, but only in certain types of bars.

I've never heard this term used outside of shinsaibashi in Osaka. I'm guessing this is a kansai thing?

I don't know too much about Kansai-ben, but it's used pretty heavily in Kochi.

I wouldn't recommend using おじさん to refer to someone you don't know. I know that native speakers do it sometimes but it's potentially quite rude and there's much better alternatives than that.

If they own the place tencho. If it just a bartender aniki can work. I've used both but I talk to them I don't just call them over and place an order. In that case I'd use sumimasen.

Thanks for all the responses, really helpful.