O.T. - eating quickly at restaurants in Japan --
December 23, 1998
As Restaurants Charge Per Minute,
Diners Often Skip Round of Seconds
By YUMIKO ONO
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
TOKYO -- Time is money here at Totenko Chinese restaurant, which explains
why Hiroyuki Shiga lays his watch strategically on his table so he can see it
while he eats lunch.
The buffet table is piled with delectable seafood and steaming stir-fried dishes,
but Mr. Shiga isn't here to linger. He and two buddies punch timecards. They
sprint to the food, rush to their table and wolf down spring rolls, fried noodles,
fried rice, tofu, and shrimp with chili sauce. Then they punch the clock again
and are out the door. Elapsed time: 19 minutes.
Mr. Shiga, a 20-year-old Tokyo student, has just participated in Japan's latest
recession-buster: all-you-can-eat by the minute. In this case, that's 35 yen a
minute -- about 30 cents. The fastest eater gets the lowest bill. Mr. Shiga pays
just $5.73, compared with the regular price of $15.95.
In a nation of artistic cuisine and scrupulous manners, eating here is no delicate
matter. "I ate everything they had," says Mr. Shiga, clad in jeans and a knit
beret. Puffing contentedly on a postmeal cigarette, he reveals his strategy: Take
"big helpings of everything" so you don't waste time getting seconds.
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, even though it means
abandoning lunchtime decorum. As Japan's $160 billion-a-year restaurant
industry strives to survive the recession, it is offering value-minded diners an
increasing array of all-you-can-eat restaurants. Some of these restaurants have
decided to go whole-hog, and thus the buffet-by-the-minute.
The logistics of serving customers by the minute can be complex. Only the
first 30 lunch customers get to pay by the minute at Totenko, so a long line of
hopefuls forms in the lobby before the restaurant opens at 11:30. To avoid
hagglers at the cash register, the "Minutes Viking" requires customers to punch
timecards, just like a factory worker might. Then they are set free at the buffet
table, where they choose from 30 items and jostle for such popular dishes as
shrimp with chili sauce.
Sake at 17 Cents a Minute
For a quick coffee break, the posh Dai-ichi Hotel Tokyo Seafort offers cake
and sandwiches for 26 cents a minute. The Hotel Nikko Osaka recently tested
the concept on alcohol: It charged 26 cents at the table for beer, wine or sake;
17 cents at the bar.
"With the economy this bad, and the restaurant industry suffering," explains
Munenori Hotta, a researcher at Tokyo's Food Service Industry Research
Center, "you really need to give consumers a good deal."
At least 176 all-you-can-eat restaurants of all types now exist in the Tokyo area
alone, allowing consumers to gorge on everything from boiled crab to salmon
hot pot to cheesecake, according to Pia Rankin' Gourmet, a Japanese
restaurant guide. Even fancy restaurants that once served the expense-account
set are now busy stuffing consumers. Tokuju Co., a Tokyo restaurant
operator, no longer serves its $80-plus kaiseki dinner, a multicourse array of
Japanese delicacies that traditionally come in petite portions; now, its $37
kaiseki lunch offers limitless refills.
But with such tough competition, some all-you-can-eateries are already
dropping out. "The ones that are left," says Mr. Hotta, "now have to have a
clear point of difference."
That's where the time-punch machine comes in. Totenko, which operates 43
restaurants in Japan, started its buffet-by-the-minute service in July in its main
Tokyo restaurant. With the recession hurting its regular lunch buffet, the
restaurant figured that rewarding fast eaters could attract time-pressed office
workers.
"At first, it was just for play," says Fumio Komatsuzaki, manager of the
restaurant. He says he thought up the idea for the metered buffet, called
Minutes Viking, when a staffer mentioned a nearby fish pond that charged
anglers by the minute. (The Japanese call the smorgasbord a "Viking," after the
fashion in which the Vikings are presumed to have eaten.)
Customers are quick to note any lapse in service that could affect their bottom
lines. "They're too slow to replenish the food," charges Masako Kobayashi,
who ate her 32-minute meal with her 20-year-old daughter, Aya. The second
batches of fried rice and stir-fry were slow in coming, she alleges, so there
weren't enough choices during her second round at the buffet table. During
dessert, she keeps looking at her watch. "It's not good to rush when you're
eating," Mrs. Kobayashi concludes.
Getting Customers to Linger
Speedy eaters have their tricks. "You can eat faster if you come by yourself,"
advises Iwao Nibuya, a Totenko sales-promotion manager.
The restaurant doesn't make money when customers eat that fast, concedes
Mr. Komatsuzaki, the manager. Still, he says, the Minutes Viking system is
boosting the restaurant's revenue because it is also drawing more customers
paying the regular price. "It's good publicity for us," he maintains.
Other by-the-minute restaurants say they have ways to get customers to linger
longer. Last summer, the Hotel Nikko Osaka served alcoholic drinks by the
minute in its Jet Stream lounge (separately serving appetizers like sushi and
sausages to prevent wholesale drunkenness). As customers started drinking
and eating, "they became absorbed in their conversation," a hotel
spokeswoman says, adding that the hotel plans a similar event next summer.
Feeling guilty, the hotel dispatched waiters with board signs saying, "Please
take note of the time." But many customers thought it was funny and stayed
for more than an hour, the spokeswoman says.
All-you-can-eat restaurants were once a luxury in Japan. In 1958, when the
Imperial Hotel opened one of the nation's first buffets, named the Imperial
Viking, it charged 1,200 yen for the lunch buffet at a time when a movie ticket
cost 150 yen. Celebrities, baseball players and even professional wrestlers
flocked to the restaurant and gawked at the opulent display of abundance.
Time Is Dessert
Now, even some fancier places are starting to reward the fast eaters. Since
September, the elegant Dai-ichi Hotel Tokyo Seafort has been offering an
afternoon tea service called Time Is Dessert Viking at 26 cents a minute, plus
tax. As consumers enter the airy Grand Cafe, which has high ceilings and
plays soothing New Age music, they see a startling sight: a crowd of people
busily mounting their plates with apple pie, raspberry mousse, French pastries,
fruit punch and dark chocolate cake -- and if they're still hungry, pizza and
bite-size sandwiches.
Eaters take their victories and defeats against the clock very seriously. "Our
goal was to finish in 30 minutes," says Kasumi Kushibe, calculating that a
half-hour would have brought her bill to an acceptable $7.80 plus tax. But the
29-year-old spent too much time chatting with her husband, Yoichi, which
cost her an extra eight minutes -- and $2.07 -- at the table.
"Next time," Ms. Kushibe says, "I'd better come when I'm really hungry."
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