Higher restaurant prices add to pressure on consumers in Japan

Higher restaurant prices add to pressure on consumers in Japan

Restaurant price going up while people have same or even less money. How that will move economy?

New Capitalism?

Prices up and wages stagnant!

Welcome to Japan.

Rising labor costs are also adding to the restaurant sector's woes

how so? Salaries aren’t rising.

more hired help? Obviously, if there’s more customers since corona started. But that’s already a given.

> as it has become more difficult to recruit staff since

because owners refuse to pay a decent amount

many eateries cut opening hours amid the coronavirus pandemic.

which still makes no sense. How is opening for 6 hours instead of 8 supposed to lower the chances of catching corona? It doesn’t. All it does is lower your chances for bringing in customers.

just like cutting back on the amount of trains or supermarket entrances, it only made things worse, not better.

The perfect recipe for a recession is to have Inflation with fixed wages.

Just a few days, I went to a restaurant where I sometimes go to eat good Sashimi.

Bssically I always order the same menu.

The price was same, but the amount was less.

Im gonna go on a limb and say the presidents and CEOs of those companies are doing quite fine sitting at the top, regardless of price hikes and cutbacks.

It a Chinese restaurant in our city,it run by Chinese ,who ever own the restaurant,sunk a lot of money in it,it used to be a grocery store,their customers are Black , Mexican and White people,they were shutdown almost a year,they survived,they even open a crab restaurant nextdoor,it an all you can eat buffet

I used to go out to eat at least 2-3 times a week. Even during the pandemic, I would still order take out. However, with the yen decreasing the value of the money I send home, prices rising and salaries unchanged for years, and now some new government change requiring everyone to get on the national pension plan in order to support the elderly, my going out will be reduced to about once a month if I can swing it.

Maybe, the people need to start telling the government enough unless they start leaning on companies to hike wages or face tax hikes themselves.

Eating out in Japan is crazily cheap compared to other countries. The easy solution for the consumer is to just eat out less. Unfortunately many smaller restaurants will be forced to close, which is very sad. Those local, family-owned joints are what Japanese cuisine is all about.

At least you don't have to leave a tip here in Japan.

@sakurasuki : welcome to the Great Reset of the WEF !

@kurisupisu : that's a worldwide consequence, and you can rejoice to be in Japan and not Europe...

The increase in restaurant meals is a world wide problem. Some basic items used in a restaurant (oil, flour, etc) have gone up significantly in price.

Still, in Japan for lower to middle style restaurants prices are cheaper than most first world countries.

Politicians looking at the price increase at their iketsuke Ginza steak house: Oh well, not our money anyways, ryoushu-sho kudasai. Oh, and increase the consumption tax so that our spending funds are able to compensate.

The same can be said for company execs going to nomikais at the company's expense. They will just raise their product's price to compensate.

Japan’s minimum wage is about 1000 yen. Roughly 7 US dollars. Minimum wage is around 15.00 in certain parts of the US.

Japan should realize it harms their economy to have such a low minimum wage in relation to of living. It makes Japan quite undesirable a place to live, as retail prices never go down and inflation makes the wage minuscule.

Japan has the most restaurants per capital in the world. Clearly there are too many restaurants trying to squeeze out profits while just barely paying the bills. And with many Japanese complaining about even small price increases it puts even more pressure on these restaurants.

I’ve got friends here who have owned restaurants before and they all say they’ll never do it again. It’s a horrible way to earn a living.

I bought 2 camp chairs and a collapsible table.....now wife and I eat out with bento boxes by riversides and beaches.

More fun , cheaper, less Covid risk.....plus doggie always welcome.

It's not a given unalienable right that every business needs to thrive. Many restaurants may close, reflecting the decreasing population and shifting in demographics. But many will survive. Japanese cuisine is in no danger, if there isn't an izakaya on every corner.

I agree with you. It's survival of the fittest at the end of the day. Still a shame when those smaller stores that make great food go out of business though.

A local bento shop I go to whacked another 100 yen increase on to all of its bentos this week.

Just a standard karage-ben has gone from 480 yen pre pandemic to 680 yen today.

I used to eat lunch daily at restaurants.

Then I cut back to 2x a week and brought something from home.

Then I cut back to once every few weeks.

Then I cut back to once a month. As prices rise, the customer adjusts.

"It worries me that those restaurants I often visit are raising prices," the 25-year-old said. "It's hard to cut back on the frequency of eating out as I enjoy doing so with my friends."

Obviously having to pay more for each visit will make it easier to cut back on the frequency until it becomes possible, visiting a restaurant a certain number of times is not exactly something as important as paying your electricity bills, so if people can afford only going 3 times a month instead of 4 that is what is going to happen. The pressure is much more important on the restaurant side than on the consumers.

If restaurants cannot offer added value such as better ingredients, they could lose customers, he said. "Demand has not recovered yet. We might see more restaurant closures in the future."

We have been seeing restaurant closures for the past 2 years or so.

Obviously having to pay more for each visit will make it easier to cut back on the frequency until it becomes possible, 

No, it makes it more expensive to eat out.

Abolish the sales tax on all food items, cooked and uncooked.

At the end of the fiscal year 2020, the number of restaurants in Japan amounted to approximately 1.41 million facilities.

An estimated 60,000 restaurants in Tokyo.

Number of restaurants in Japan from fiscal year 2015 to 2020

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1230470/japan-restaurant-numbers/

There were 842 restaurant bankruptcies through 2020 in Japan, according to the private credit research company Tokyo Shōkō Research.

Total resturant sales ¥11 trillion.

No, it makes it more expensive to eat out.

Making something not necessary more expensive obviously makes it easier to justify it doing it less frequently, your comment do not negate what you are quoting, in fact just says the same thing.