Saw this on the news the other day. Looks like bankruptcies in ramen restaurants is up 3.5% over last year. Rising energy costs along with the inability to raise prices past 1,000 yen due to customer expectations of “cheap, but good” ramen is causing some to close down.
Not sure what can be done about this as we all know how the Japanese feel about price changes. Only thing I can think is to tell your favorite local ramen restaurant that you are willing to pay more rather then have them shut down.
The news report also said that people were willing to pay more for pasta dishes vs Japanese ramen because “Ramen is a local food and should be cheap. Where pasta is imported and therefore more expensive.”. The view that Italian spaghetti should be more expensive than ramen is just crazy to me. Guess I should go open a pasta restaurant.
Support your local Ramen restaurants!
29 comments
Thanks, definitely planning to my local ramen store to tell them I’m willing to pay more! Just need to find the time as it needs minimum 1hr lining.
Or you can be my favorite ramen shop and raise your prices 3 times in 1 year! Their 780 basic bowl is now 920, and the 980 deluxe that I usually got is now 1100
Used to go every week but now that I gotta use a full 1,000 yen + change it’s become a monthly thing
Not only this, but also the fact that a lot of Japanese people buy the supermarket pre-cooked ramens (the ones sold fresh) which to be fair are for some of them almost the same taste but cost a quarter of the price. Same thing happened with okonomiyaki.
>Only thing I can think is to tell your favorite local ramen restaurant that you are willing to pay more rather then have them shut down.
Great! Now only those with higher disposable incomes can enjoy ramen! Keisuke Honda is that you? lol
I’m not a big ramen fan but a month or so ago I was hungover and felt like some ramen so I went to Ippudo.
I got like a cha-shu tonkotsu ramen and a side of five gyoza and it cost me like 1800 yen. What the fuck? That’s obscene. But the place was packed. The flavour was super ordinary too.
The basic bowl of ramen is already straddling the 1.000 yen bar in my neck of the woods. If you want toppings 1.150-1.300 is not unheard of for some of the best.
This sounds more like a Tokyo/Kansai problem. Out in the sticks with cheaper rent we’re already at 1000yen for ramen. Extras go well over.
The other thing is, a lot of ramen shops need a look at their finances and operations, and scale up a bit business wise.
Wasn’t the number of ramen shops at a record high this year?
> The view that Italian spaghetti should be more expensive than ramen is just crazy to me
That and it’s often straight up inferior. The “meat sauce” here is only a slight step up from ketchup, which I’ve also seen them slather it in.
My local’s kodawari tantanmen is the best thing in life and I’d happily pay 2~3000円 for it if they decided to charge that.
Friends and Family who fly home after having tried it develop a sort of food-depression, it is a national treasure that must be protected.
I do support my local ramen places. They are also in the 600-700 range.
A far cry from the 390 it used to be less than 10 years ago.
I don’t go to a lot o ramen restaurants cuz it’s so little food sometimes for like 1000+ and almost no veggies; it’s not really a meal. I only go to a few where it’s a lot of meat and veggies.
Also, I almost NEVER go to Italian restaurants here cuz the pasta is garbage and costs a ridiculous amount.
This is business and inflation as usual? Cost of goods raises, that means business need to either raise their prices or cut down their costs, so only the ones that manage to stay profitable remain open, and that’s a “feature” of the market (unprofitable business should close). If many close, then the demand of the remaining ones will increase, making them profitable again.
The real problem is stagnating wages IMHO, which prices the new ramen out of those with lower salaries. We’ve had inflation for few years already in Japan (specially bad this year) but wages haven’t meaningfully increased AFAIK.
I mean, sure, tell the owner that he can raise prices. Make sure to also go there several times a day though when he loses customers who don’t want to pay the price to make up for the lost business.
Also, I would assume that most business would raise prices before deciding to shut down, and only doing so when they can no longer make a profit. It doesn’t make sense to just give up and close your shop without trying different ways to stay open.
The price of ramen is too damn high, and the market is oversaturated.
The places that cater to Yank tourists and their roided up currency will be doing just fine.
Factory worker Taro who has seen his real income decline by 10%, probably isn’t willing to shell out 1,500 yen for a bowl of noodles.
Can’t really blame the restaurants but I think everyone is feeling the crunch. Companies have no choice but to increase prices or decrease the size.
Maybe because it’s not nice. There’s so many salarymen sick of their jobs quitting and opening ramen shops. Some are quite decent quality. But some of the older more ordinary ones are ordinary to the point I can’t eat them.
This ramen shop in yokohama close to my house had the price tag for ramen as 450¥ since I have memories.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/YqT874YiiocEJSTHA?g_st=ic
Ramen is great, namabiru 250¥, small chahan 250¥ for less than 1.000¥ you have a ramen, beer and small chahan. I go there weekly.
Most good ramen places around me have been above 1000 yen for a few years at least. I’m certainly willing to pay that for really tasty ramen, and the shops are usually packed too. I guess it depends on the area and the restaurant – places that have regulars that raised their prices gradually maybe are ok.
Business is business.
Ramen shops aren’t about to die out. Don’t worry
>as we all know how the Japanese feel about price changes
I’m sure they’d feel better about it if price changes also came with wage changes, but they don’t. Ramen is tasty, but not particularly healthy and can be made cheaply at home, so I think it makes a lot of sense not to prioritise that particular expense.
My town has like tens of ramen joints. Idk how they all stay in business and they all taste about the same to me
Every girl I’ve dated here loves overpriced Italian food that ends up being mid as hell. The put all their effort into the presentation for that Instagram photo over taste.
I’ll happily eat a 900y bowl of ramen over that any day and twice on Sunday.
>The news report also said that people were willing to pay more for pasta dishes vs Japanese ramen
This is to be expected, actually. Think about how much Americans are willing to pay for fast food vs what they are willing to pay for sushi … or even ramen in the US.
This is a global issue. Eg many pubs in the UK shut down.
I get it and do want to support. But at the same time my salary is not increasing.
Where is everyone going where ramen places are a minimum 1k yen? I’m still seeing places all over kanto that start at 790 or whatever and if you go above 1K it’s because you’re adding extra or sides.
The pizza place across the street raised their prices 2 times this year already and I fear it’s going to be even more.
A margherita pizza was 700円, went to 900円 and now 1000円.
As another comment said, I went from going weekly to monthly now. I can definitely afford it but at this price I rather cook.
Also not sure if it’s a regular behavior but they seem to open and close the shop whenever they like and not respecting their advertised opening hours.
Bank of Japan can solve this issue immediately if they stop acting like retards and increase the interest rate.
They won’t though because the average Japanese boomer is a mega retard locked into an ARM so the second BOJ increased the rate we’ll be flooded with homeless boomers in the street that were incapable of rubbing two brain cells together to understand what the “adjustable” in adjustable rate mortgage means.
So instead we all get to enjoy hyper devalued yen where we’ll all continue paying 2x the price we previously were on foodstuffs and household commodities because newsflash; Japan is an island nation that imports everything. I hope you all like moyashi because it’s all you’ll be eating unless the BoJ decides to upset the government by turning on their mushybrained boomer voter base.
Maybe Japan should just raise their damn wages Idunno 🤷♂️