Long-established giants are struggling & that dumpling store is making great strides in Corona… Undercover survey reveals! A New Map of Power in the Super Cheap Alcoholic Beverage Chain

A decade ago, most of the neon signs in the downtown area were dominated by the super-cheap taverns operated by major restaurant chains such as Watami and Monteroza.

However, the rise and fall of this industry has been rapid. Watami Group, once known as the “king of izakaya,” removed the “Watami” brand name from all of its izakaya brands in 2009, and replaced it with “Torimero III,” a yakitori restaurant, and “Miraizaka,” which sells fried chicken.

Torimero, which takes the “cosy” route, is characterized by low prices for drinks, such as “The Premium Malts” (medium) for 218 yen. When this reporter conducted an undercover investigation of a restaurant in central Tokyo around 9:00 p.m. on a weekday, about 70% of the seats were occupied by young people and women who appeared to be a group of housewives. The waiter recommended the “Seiryu Wakadori Momo Ippon-yaki” for 968 yen. It is expensive for a chain izakaya, but the restaurant says that many customers order it. In addition to grilled skewers, the restaurant also serves fried skewers starting at 88 yen each. The bill was 2,500 yen per person, a very average price per customer, but perhaps because of the large number of items on the menu, the food was often served late.

Despite Watami’s efforts to experiment, the number of Torimero and Miraizaka restaurants, which totaled approximately 300 in April 2007, had been reduced to 189 as of April of this year. Yakitori izakaya have a lot of competition, and it is difficult to create novelty.

In addition to the decline in the number of izakaya, the demand for banquets has plummeted due to the “new Corona pandemic. Long-established chains with “big boxes” have been hit hard.

Along with Watami, Monteroza, which operates nine izakaya brands, including Shiroki-ya and Uotami, is a huge chain with many large restaurants with more than 100 seats and a brand division of 2,500 to 4,000 yen per customer. However, Corona hit them hard and they closed 61 stores in Tokyo in 2009, and since then, there has been no sign of improvement. A former employee of Monteroza said.

Ten years ago, it was common for some stores to sell 10 million yen a month, but in recent years that number has plummeted. Then Corona caught up with them. The Monteroza chain was very manual and focused on efficiency, but it was losing customers to izakaya (Japanese style pubs), which sell unique items such as customer service and menus. As a desperate measure, they opened “Yamauchi Farm” and “Me-toriki no Ginji” one after another, which were similar to the popular izakaya style at the time, and adopted the strategy of aiming for the “second loach,” but the quality of service gradually deteriorated. However, the quality of service gradually declined, and the group as a whole tapered off as we repeatedly switched to new businesses.