First, this is my first post on Reddit, so don’t kill me now 🙂
I am from Germany.
I see so many restaurants (and I mean restaurants, similar to diners in the US, not food stalls at a street corner) that sell unbelievably cheap food. Some portions are extreme! But they are cheap, below 5 US-$!
How can that be?
When it comes to economy, I am a bit “legasthenic”. In my home country Germany, eating out is so expensive that even most middle-class people can only afford doing that once, twice a month or even less. And the lower income levels cannot even buy food to make decent meals at home. A schnitzel in Germany is, at least in my area, in average 25-35$. I saw a Bento in Hiroshima, which had fried croquetes, a beefsteak burger AND a schnitzel with an egg, but was just 5,6 US-$. But also in other Japanese cities are so many diners which sell food below 5 US-$. And again, they are full meals, not some snack in between.
Germany and Japan have similar economies, hightly industrialised, specialised industries, big middle-class etc. How come that my home country is so expensive in food, and Japan so cheap?
Sorry, because this post is partly not Japan related, but I just wonder about it. Thanks to all!
by Bhadresvaravarman
31 comments
The owners have been doing it their whole life, own the building and don’t really need to turn a profit anymore.
Yen is weak.
And restaurants are generally cheaper in Asia than in Europe and North America. Even in Singapore and Hong Kong restaurants are a lot more affordable. Dining out isn’t a luxury like it is in Europe and North America where you are forced to cook every meal.
This is an awesome question and I cannot wait to see the replies. Additionally…there are SO MANY choices. The competition seems so fierce. Also, there are so many convenience stores with affordable high quality food. Finally, if you factor in the breakfast carbs, all of the rice, all of the noodles, and moderate booze consumption, how is there not more obesity there?
Many of the operators are elderly and own the building so don’t have to pay rent.
They can pay workers less than $6 per hour.
Commodity prices in Japan are cheap.
The economy is bad so if they raise prices too much, they feel like they will lose customers. There really isn’t much of a culture of raising prices in Japan.
Are you talking about independently owned restaurants or low-priced chains like Joyfull, Coco’s, Sukiya, Yoshinoya, Denny’s, etc.? The US has similar low-priced chains.
I’m not well-versed in business and tenant laws in Japan, so I will paste a comment that might answer your question. A comment from a video about [“Could this be a Solution to Gentrification?” by About Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h46WVCr4zk0)
“Being able to own a business and live in the same space really changes the game on what you are able to do to generate business.”
“in Japan if you can afford to one one building, you can make a business on the bottom and a home on the top. And flourish. Not only that, you make business accessible to a lot more people.”
It’s astonishing that places like Narai-Juku can survive for a long time despite having few visitors.
Money is worth different things in different countries. Hard to go “wow its 5 usd” when for a native that cost means nothing because their pay isnt in dollars. Commodities are different too. Pure exchange rate scales don’t work.
I’ve actually always wondered this too. I see some comments saying it’s because of the weak yen, but food was still “cheap” when the yen was stronger than the US dollar back in the early 2000s when I would visit my family in Japan.
I live in the U.S., and I’ve visited Germany a handful of times, so going out to eat a standard sit down lunch meal usually costs $17 and up, and then tipping 20% on top of that in the U.S. and in Germany, a schnitzel will cost around the price range you mentioned above, and rounding up a bit more for tip.
But how is it, that even when the yen was stronger back in early 2000s, I could still get a good tonkatsu teishoku lunch set at a sit down restaurant for 1,000 yen and not having to pay any tip?
and these teishoku prices aren’t just from stand alone restaurants only, they’re prices you would see in shopping arcades and underground areas where these places are still paying rent.
I still haven’t been able to figure it out. But I’ve noticed it too, even from stronger yen times.
Low overhead, no debt, stagnant costs for 30 years. After this year you’ll definitely see more $7 to $10 equivalent meals.
>In my home country Germany, eating out is so expensive that even most middle-class people can only afford doing that once, twice a month or even less.
And that’s exactly why I don’t want to live in Germany, or worse, Switzerland, anymore. Not to mention that the food there is pretty unimaginative and bland in addition to being expensive.
Part of the reason why it’s cheap is that the owner don’t need to worry about theft or vandalism, which can lead to higher prices to offset other costs. A bad neighborhood can easily kill business. Take a look at San Francisco and see why many businesses are moving out. Luckily for Japan, it is safe, and the people respect each other. It doesn’t hurt that Japan has some of the biggest cities in the world. Owner can afford to sell at lower cost if they are constantly bringing in more customers.
Some restaurants are indeed owned by the owner but I don’t think that’s the majority. In fact I think that’s a small minority but I don’t have numbers here. I just have experience working at kitchens and none of them owned their place.
I know someone(and worked for someone ) who has been running his izakaya for decades but he does not own it at all.
In addition, chain restaurants have access to cheaper ingredients through their network. I went sweet potato digging recently and 600 yen got me 6kg of sweet potatoes…
I also know someone who’s been in the restaurant business. She in fact just opened her 5th restaurant this month, an upscale halal restaurant in Kiba.
The truth is she opens and closes her ( non chain ) restaurants all the time. When they don’t do well,she closes, when it does well, she stays open.
And this is only a personal observation: they use a lot of rice ,pasta , nan basically carbs. The proportion to actual protein is not so high because protein is expensive. This is not for all restaurants of course, but I just went to an Indian restaurant and they had two pieces of shrimp and one piece of chicken in the curry set (nan + 2 smallbowls of curry) . It was 880 yen. This is just the latest example but I’ve observed this in many types of restaurants, not only Indian.
I also took my Italian aunt to Sushiro and she said the portion awee so small😄 small and pretty but small.
Two months ago I went to Fridays and they downsized their Cobb salad. The price remained the same. I was really disappointed 😞
So they keep the price and sacrifice size /ingredients. And if you observe, a lot of salads have 1-2 pieces of cherry tomatoes ( I made salads too when I was an aspiring chef ). Lucky if you get three!
My question is , if middle class people just eat out once or twice a month how do restaurants survive in Germany ?
I remember when you could get a beef udon bowl on Mondays for 50 yen.
They are my savior. I was a poor student in Fukuoka and there is this old ojisan selling full meal for 500 yen. Free extra rice! Sooo delicious too.
I think, in addition to what the others have said, that for the smaller shops it’s just a numbers game. They make only a small profit on each customer, but they serve a LOT more customers.
I’m from a similar background where going to a restaurant is a bit of an occasion. It’s expensive, so it’s not something one does very often. But when one does go, it’s an hour-long affair or longer, with drinks and perhaps multiple courses.
Meanwhile in Japan, a lot of people live off of some combination of conbini snacks, bento, and meals from those small shops. Restaurants aren’t a once-a-month occasion, they’re potentially a multiple-times-a-day occasion. So the amount of money in the market is still pretty good, even if per-customer it’s lower. And people don’t sit for hours, they get in, get fed, and get out, so even a small premises can serve a lot of customers.
Japan has rather low wages (apart from Tokyo maybe), so the restaurants just can’t charge much. the large amount of “bullshit jobs” (Japan has the lowest productivity in G7, it’s similar to Poland) creates a large pool of poorly paid workers to choose from. it’s not like Germany where restaurants have to offer competitive wages to find employees
Isn’t it because of the high turnover of customers?
In the West, people basically do not dine alone. They visit with several people.
However, in Japan, it is very common for one to eat alone and leave the restaurant immediately.
I’m from Germany aswell..in the past I used to rougly calculate “100¥ = 1€” so for example Ramen at 900¥ would be 9€, which is also the price you would’ve gotten a big Pizza in Germany.
But then theres the weak Yen lately.. so 1€ is (currently) roughly 163¥, so the Ramen for 900¥ is like 5,50€ now, which is super cheap, but only in comparison to Euro.
The inflation in Germany on the other hand makes food even more expensive there which is why the 9€ Pizza from like 2 years ago is now 12€+ so the gap widens on both sides, making that effect even more extreme.
In Asian counties, culture of eating out is developed. Eating out is more efficient, yummy, and cheap.
It doesn’t feel that cheap if you get paid in yen 😅
The low prices are part of why they survive.
In most western countries, restaurant prices are so marked up so high that you’re only going there on special occasions like on a date or for a birthday. At most, maybe you’ll go out for a meetup with friends once a week.
But in Japan, even on minimum wage you can still afford to pop by a cheap ramen or teishoku place or whatever on the way home after work every day if you don’t feel like cooking. There are plenty of people (usually families) who still rarely go out for dinner anyway, but there’s a lot of people who eat out multiple times a week (or even every day) so restaurants can get much more reliable regular business.
Of course, there are several factors but here are some key differences to Germany:
The turnover rate is much higher in Japan. In Germany, sitting down for lunch at a restaurant is a 45-60 minute thing while in Japan you come in, eat, and get out in under 20 minutes. Therefore small restaurants can survive a lot better because they are able to have 5-7 guests per seat during the lunch rush instead of just 2.
Less regulations. Opening a restaurant in Germany is a bureaucratic nightmare and you have to follow many regulations. In Japan, it is comparatively simple.
Hiring workers is a lot more complex in Germany especially if you just need someone 2-3 hours a day. Japan has baito and it is very simple to hire minimum wage labour for a few hours. Many of these small restaurants are run by one person who just gets some baito to help during the lunch rush.
This is because the average income in Japan is low as a matter of fact.If a couple and their children spend more than $15 on a meal out, they will think, “I spent extravagantly today. I will spend less money tomorrow.
Only Japanese who earn enough money do not mind spending more than $5.
In other words, if the price goes up any higher, only some Japanese will visit the store!
Yes it is incredible cost performance.
The reverse question is intriguing too: why is eating out in Germany, France, UK, US, etc so expensive? Definitely not because of the wages, they’re terrible in that industry (and don’t get me started on tipping in the US…)
I’ve heard that in south and east Asia, eating out has a very different significance than in Europe. For us in Germany it is a rare treat outside of everyday life. For many asians it’s perfectly normal to eat out a lot, up to most meals. So they are ridiculously cheap. It’s more like a quick small everyday thing, not a celebrated restaurant meal once a month.
They sell cheap, but probably sell way more than your local Dönerbude.
I imagine it like if many people of a neighborhood ate a Döner for breakfast and dinner most days a week, not just once on the weekend or so.
A lot of people don’t have full kitchens in their tiny apartments, if they have a kitchen at all, or work long hours with long commutes. I’ve read that some people even live in their office cubicle… I guess they all have to be fed, too.
Because people are trying to make a living providing a service, not trying to bleed you dry.
The best example is how tea is free in every restaurant whereas in many places in europe they look down on you if you ask for tap water.
I just got back from a trip to Japan and had gyudon for dinner. In Japan at Yoshinoya this meal would have cost $5, in Canada the same meal cost over $20 before tip.
It’s actually insane. Send me back.
Food isn’t that expensive, just in europe they trick us to think that it is
Stagflation plays a role here. I worked in Japan 20 years ago as an English teacher, and have visited since. Both salaries (at least for entry level teaching work), and cost of living, hasn’t really changed all that much. Meanwhile in the US, both are way up over that period of time. Japan is famous for being stuck in these economic doldrums for decades.
Where in Germany are you from, I was in Berlin and Munich last year and I can guarantee I never paid anything close to 25eurks for a schnitzel. I actually found Germany quite reasonable regarding overall food price.
You must be living in a different germany than i do.
Sure restaurants can be expensive here(in germany), but everyone can afford to go shopping and cook a nice meal at home