Why Fried Fried Food Restaurants Decreased and “Onigiri Specialty Restaurants” Increased? Inflation was the key factor that made the difference between the two.

A new custom that started with the COVID-19 crisis is the online drinking party. During times when people were not able to go out freely, such as in stay-homes, some people must have looked forward to having a slightly extravagant evening drink in the house.

Fried chicken does not lose its deliciousness even when taken out. In the years since the COVID-19 crisis began, I have seen more and more fried food restaurants, but I felt that recently there has been a noticeable number of closures. Instead, there has been an increase in onigiri (rice ball) stores, mainly for take-out. In fact, there were as many as eight onigiri stores within a 10-minute walking distance from Shibuya station, for example.

Onigiri can be purchased at convenience stores and kiosks. However, there must be some reason why onigiri specialty stores have gone out of their way to line the streets. We asked Atsushi Karl Hirano, a management consultant, about it (all statements in parentheses are his).

The number of fried food restaurants continued to increase, at one point surpassing that of McDonald’s.

The number of takeout stores increased as the reduced tax rate was applied to outside food and beverages when the consumption tax was increased in 2007. The number of karaage restaurants increased, riding the tailwind of takeout demand in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

Karaage became the catchphrase for the COVID-19 crisis’s reluctance to eat out and fatigue with cooking for oneself. At the same time, demand for takeout and delivery expanded, and at its peak, some karaage restaurants specialized in delivery and did not have a physical store, called ghost kitchens,” said Hirano.

As of April 2010, according to the Japan Karaage Association, there were an estimated 4,379 restaurants nationwide. The number has increased about 10-fold in 10 years from 450 stores in 2012. Compared to McDonald’s with approximately 3,000 stores and Kentucky with 1,197 stores, this is a large number of stores. The rapid increase in the number of such fried food restaurants is one of the reasons for the string of closures.

The rapid increase in the number of such fried food restaurants is one of the reasons for their closure. In many cases, what were originally tapioca stores have been converted to Taiwanese and Korean chicken stores. Also, fried chicken is a relatively simple dish and does not require professional chefs. This ease of opening a restaurant, coupled with the excessive increase in the number of restaurants, made it difficult to differentiate between them,” said Hirano.