The butcher store of Kismai Senga’s handsome younger brother has been super-renovated and turned into a “paradise” for celebrities and fans!

A handsome one-man operation

He is also working on social networking and MEO. They were really sad. Why? Some of them were in tears. I had been working at the previous restaurant for three years, and one of my regular customers who used to bring her children to the restaurant said, ‘My child has only eaten meat from here. What should we do from now on?　 Where should we buy the meat? I was really happy to hear that.

Meat Garage Kitagawa, a butcher store in Azabu Juban (Minato-ku, Tokyo) that regrettably closed at the end of 2023, has returned. The new store has undergone a super evolution, adding an eat-in space and a handsome owner to serve customers.

The newly reopened store is just 50 meters away from the previous one. The reasonable prices are still the same. The new name is “Meat Garage. The owner, Joi Senga, 30, whose brother is Kengo Senga, 33, of Kis-My-Ft2, says the disappearance of the word “Kitagawa” from the …… store name has nothing to do with the disappearance of the former Johnny’s office.

The fact that the word “Kitagawa” is no longer in the restaurant name has nothing to do with the disappearance of the former Johnny’s office, he said. That’s why the name of the restaurant changed a little. I really wanted to close at the end of the year and reopen right after the new year. However, we couldn’t find a good place in Azabu Juban.

So we decided to open in Hiroo, and we had a good idea for a place, but the owner had to cancel the deal for his own reasons. At a loss, I was strolling along the shopping street of Azabu Juban when I saw a real estate agency. I opened the door as if I was being drawn to it, and the conversation proceeded at a steady pace, and I ended up here.

In terms of floor space, the new store is about 2 tsubo larger than the previous store. The new store is about 2 tsubo larger than the previous one, but it feels larger than it looks on the drawing, so Senga decided to expand the eat-in space.

The previous store also sold boxed lunches, but I remember the butcher shop from when I was a little girl,” he said. I used to stop by on my way home from school and eat them freshly fried on the benches inside the store. So I wanted to serve croquettes, fried chicken, and other hot snacks here.

But it’s funny, when you actually try it, the menchikatsu doesn’t win alone. Taco rice is also served often. I put it on the menu because I used to work in a café and thought, “Maybe women will like it as a salad. We have hamburgers on the menu, but we also offer a salsa burger derived from taco rice.

In the three months since the restaurant opened this summer, 40% of the customers who used to frequent the previous restaurant have returned. The number of new customers has also increased. Along with advertising and promotion, the current issue is “eliminating one-operator operations.

I start preparing in the morning, and after the store opens, I prepare food to be served at the eat-in restaurant while serving customers. I close the cash register, clean up, and prepare the next day’s dishes.

I have one less day off than at my previous restaurant, and it is only on Mondays and holidays. Since I have to go shopping on Mondays as well, the only time I can rest is on holidays. When the store first opened, I was not used to it, so I was in a flurry of activity. That’s exactly what happened to me. My right eye hurt so bad I couldn’t open it. And I got mono eye leprosy. It took two months for the swelling to go down and get back to normal.

I was also busy during the Azabu Juban Festival in August, working 21 hours a day after the restaurant was closed for preparations. That was for three days. My right eye started to hurt again, so I immediately put some eye drops in it to prevent the leprosy. I gradually came to understand my own body and was able to take countermeasures (laughs).

When I find myself too tired, I watch videos on YouTube of one-upper-middle-class town halls. “I’ve been doing it all by myself for over 20 years! I watch these old men struggling to make ends meet, and I think to myself, “He’s an iron man. But even in this situation, I am actually thinking of starting a dinner business (laughs). I need to find a good partner who can share my vision and give me tough advice.

What helps Senga relax is, of course, his work. At the previous restaurant, he was in charge of the back of the house, mainly cutting and cooking meat, but at the new restaurant, he stands at the cash register and serves customers by himself. She enjoys the interaction and communication there, and says she is “healed” by the experience.

I am very happy that we were able to meet the expectations of customers who had been waiting for the opening. What is strange is that everyone brings us souvenirs for some reason.

For some reason, everyone brings me souvenirs, such as “I went to Disneyland, please try this if you like,” or souvenirs from my hometown Nagoya, “You haven’t been back home at all, have you?　Please eat it and miss your hometown. He also gave me stomach medicine and nutritional drinks. I guess my face showed my fatigue (laughs).

Orders from his brother, Kennaga Senga

He says that Kismai fans come not only from Tokyo but also from all over Japan.

They stop by in large numbers on their way home from concerts, or come alone,” he says. When my brother was holding a private exhibition, many of the customers were on their way home from the exhibition. They would order a boxed lunch and spend three to four hours enjoying themselves while eating at the eat-in space.

Fans who came separately often hit it off at the restaurant and have a great time. There was one person who drank and ate until 10:30 p.m. and went home. Since there are many Kismai fans, they sometimes ask me, ‘Let’s take a picture together. If it’s okay with me, I’ll be happy to take it.

There was also a woman from China who was a Kismai fan. I could only speak English and Chinese, but I managed to communicate with her in English, and we took a picture together after she ate her bento.

When asked what menu items Kismai fans like, Senga replied, “They order everything. I guess they want to conquer the whole menu,” he laughed.

What’s interesting is that comedians who do impersonations of Kismai have become repeat customers, and we get to interact with the fans who come to the restaurant. When the families of the other members of Kismai came to the restaurant, they interacted with each other in the eat-in space (laughs). I was impressed, thinking, ‘That’s a great sight.

My brother’s seniors and juniors also come by to buy meat. They would say, ‘We’re having a BBQ, can you help us? The store was full of fans, so I secretly paid the bill and handed it over outside the store. If they had found me, I would have panicked.

My brother is also very supportive. He ordered 50 lunch boxes for the staff the other day. But it was hard for me to make them by myself, and I made the manager who came to pick them up wait a long time.

I once delivered meat for the launch party to my brother, and one of the staff members told me, “The lunchboxes you delivered the other day were really delicious. I think my brother ordered it to promote the restaurant. I have nothing but gratitude.

You can also drink alcohol at the restaurant. Currently, they only serve beer by the bottle, but they hope to eventually offer whiskey, shochu, and wine. Since there are few places to drink on Sundays in Azabu Juban, residents are eager to have the restaurant open for dinner on Sundays.

I am often told, ‘If you are open for dinner on Sundays, I will definitely go there. Even on weekdays, if we open for dinner, there is a demand for catering. They would say, ‘Grill a steak and deliver it to our customers. It’s interesting.

My family advised me to do business with inbound customers. There was a news story about a 10,000-yen steak skewer that was selling like hotcakes in Tsukiji. They said, “If you do it in Shibuya, it will catch on.

I would like to open a restaurant in the future, but I think it is important to have a butcher store as the backbone of the business. I think it’s important to have a butcher shop as the backbone of your business.

I have many things I want to do. When I wrote them down in my notepad, I had a tremendous amount of things I wanted to do. I narrowed it down to “this is a little too much,” and here we are.

In terms of short-term goals, I would say that we need to advertise to reach customers who have not yet returned, and to cultivate new customers. From the outside, we are a mysterious store. I don’t think we look like a butcher shop. It might look like a steak shop or a bar.

That’s why I’m thinking of building a terrace in front of the restaurant and opening for lunch. Then, when people come to have lunch, they can say, “You sell meat, too. That’s so cheap!” and have them buy lunch boxes as if they were side dishes.

Another example is the steak bento sold at baseball stadiums. We definitely want to enter this market in the future. If you were to eat a steak bowl at the Tokyo Dome, you would probably pay over 2,000 yen, right?　If that is the case, we can definitely serve a cheaper and tastier bento!

There was a time when he and his brother aspired to become top idols. However, after many twists and turns, Senga has arrived at a new stage where he is beginning to shine at his best.

Meat Garage
2-18-2 Azabujuban, Minato-ku, Tokyo

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