Tokyo’s Kitchen Dive is pretty much the perfect example of a crowd-pleasing business. The Tokyo bento shop is known for its massive portions, rock-bottom prices, and unpretentious palate-pleasing flavor.
And yet, even all that wasn’t enough to satisfy a late-night customer who came in during the pre-dawn hours on the morning of May 25. When he asked for his bento to be warmed up, the staff told him they couldn’t accommodate him, due to contact-limiting policies in place as coronavirus precautions. The man then flew into a rage, and in addition to insults like “You’re garbage. I make as much money in a month as you do in a year,” the staff had coins and bills flung at them, which is never a polite way to render payment.
Kitchen Dive posted its security camera footage of the incident, which went viral and was shown on multiple TV news programs in Japan. Shortly thereafter, the man who had thrown the money returned to Kitchen Dive with a gift and an apology, neither of which the management was in any mood to accept, instead telling the man to turn himself in to the police.
The man did so, and after a month of investigating, he’s now been placed under arrest, as Kitchen Dive reported in a tweet accompanied with, for some reason, a bunch of cute teddy bears.
“The drunken person who came into Kitchen Dive’s main Kamedo branch in the middle of the night and assaulted our staff has been arrested. We can’t say any more than that since the investigation is ongoing, but we wanted to inform everyone.”
Surprisingly, the man who threw the money works in the restaurant industry himself as an owner/manager. In a follow-up tweet, Kitchen Dive says that one of his employees anonymously contacted either the restaurant or the police to reveal his identity, leaving Kitchen Dive wondering how horrible a boss he must be to his own workers.
Online commenters were unanimously happy to see justice being served:
“Been waiting for this!”
“Congratulations on the criminal being arrested, and a thank-you to the police who carried it out.”
“A bento shop is a place to buy bento, not a place to go buck wild.”
“Throw the book at him!”
In the video of the incident, the person who threw the money was accompanied by one other man, who also tried to intimidate the staff as the pair challenged the workers to step outside for a fistfight. Due to the Japanese language not ordinarily differentiating between the words “person” and “people” it’s unclear from Kitchen Dive’s report whether one or both men have been arrested, but even if it’s just the one who actually threw the money, hopefully his companion will be better behaved from now on.
*Source: Twitter/@divemamuru via *Hachima Kiko
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
-- Ignore the name, Kitchen Dive’s bento are cheap and delicious!
-- Legendary Tokyo bento shop offers free food 24 hours a day for one month if it meets Twitter goal
© SoraNews24
32 Comments
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Chop Chop
In the West, the Bento shop will be sued for breaking customer privacy because the Bento shop uploaded CCTV footage on the social media.
It's not polite way to pay by throwing money at staff. Also staff must explain about why they can't warm up the food to customer.
ally
Drunken disorder... big deal! Stop making a big fuzz out of this! The guy came back and apologized.
kurisupisu
If only he had thrown 1000 yen notes …
Seesaw7
LOL
kaimycahl
@sakurasukiToday 07:14 am JST
Involving police is really a waste of tax payer money, once he apologized there small chance he would repeat same thing. In Japan so many unnecessary small things need to be handled by police
The typical remorseful thing is to say I am sorry but after the fact!!! Thats an easy way out what about the workers feelings.
Tora
"Throw the book at him!"
Original Japanese, please?
kennyG
Hope I am not the only one who thinks it is so much better that the cops has nothing else to do excep stepping into this kind of troubles.
Paul
I saw video footage of the incident on TV a few weeks ago. Disgusting behavior, totally unacceptable and now knowing that the he was from the food service industry himself, makes his behavior even worse!
Fighto!
Having coins thrown at people and them being threatened with physical violence by a piece of human garbage is NOT trivial.
In what sick, messed-up world would that be acceptable behaviour?
Flute
So if I got it right : no mask, insult, violence, menace. Good that Dive did not let it slide. Hat off for the lady at the cashier that must have been really hard.
https://soranews24.com/2021/06/02/drunk-customers-throw-money-at-tokyo-bento-shop-workers-heads-owners-need-help-tracking-them-down%E3%80%90video%E3%80%91/
https://twitter.com/divemamuru/status/1399638734018994178
Mirchy
@snowymountainhell
''...no soup for you!!...'' :))
Danielsan
Any person with an iota of self respect should shun any business that resorts to involving law enforcement in such trivial matters.
Sven Asai
The intonation is on coins here. Throwing coins is, at least historically, something like a sign of a soon to start weaponed attack, like showing up a sword, too. You can see that in some movies, when one of the heroes has a line of coin’s threaded up and mounted at his obi belt, (that’s why the coins have wholes btw, for lining them up , better counting and transport in earlier times), then takes one or many off and throws them at the enemy, hurting or sometimes even killing him with those coins. And that’s the point here, he could have thrown anything else and it wouldn’t be a news now. We would otherwise be showered with such news, angry people throwing something at other people everyday.
Oxycodin
in The USA crime like this doesn’t get National attention lol
Oxycodin
Because Japan is so peaceful that the cops are bored out of there mind and have nothing more important to do.
Xulux
I don't understand how the man was got the bento in the first place. Did staff hand it to him? How about the coins and bills flung at him? Did staff eventually pick those up?
Why not warm up the bento in the first place? Who wants to eat cold food like the anyway?
I am definitely boycotting Dive.
Pukey2
So they didn't have a microwave oven?
Heating up a bento has got nothing to do with contact-limiting policies. If you don't have an oven, just say so.
serendipitous1
They should throw the bento at him!
ShinkansenCaboose
@Randy: It is The Hood of Tokyo
602miko
Asking apology that's the wonderful gesture ever had. In other country pride to pride no apology after. They let their lawyer to work for their mistakes.
Randy Johnson
You know it's a rough neighborhood when Dive has the best bentos around.
Fighto!
Please read the story. They were the victims of an assault by a scum, drunken and violent man. I hope this trash loses his business and livelihood.
The staff at the bento shop deserve support, not boycotting.
Azzprin
FiddlersToday 06:54 am JST
Had the footage NOT went viral and shown on TV, would he have returned ?
Xulux
I will boycott Dive.
ShinkansenCaboose
I never go to Dives.
And if I don’t like the food if I do head into a dive, I pay and leave never to return.
snowymountainhell
Does this story seem somewhat like a Japanese version of a Seinfeld episode?
gogogo
The place was a real dive it seems
snowymountainhell
All the cute bears in Kitchen Dive’s tweeted pic look quite content… except ‘the panda’. - Perhaps this may be their subtle(?) commentary about the perpetrator?
sakurasuki
Involving police is really a waste of tax payer money, once he apologized there small chance he would repeat same thing. In Japan so many unnecessary small things need to be handled by police
Fiddlers
At least the guy came back the next day and apologized for his behavior. Involving the police is ridiculous and just a cheap way to get some free publicity for the shop, he doesn't deserve to be locked up in the police station for this.