Ramen restaurant owner Mayuaka Umezawa
food

Idol singer-turned-ramen restaurant owner has great plan to make sure her staff are paid during pandemic

6 Comments
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24

While restaurants in Japan haven’t been ordered to close, the continuing coronavirus outbreak is putting a huge hurt on the industry. Following the official declaration of a state of emergency in Tokyo and several of Japan’s most populous prefectures, many are choosing to eat their meals at home, and the surge in telecommuting means office lunch crowds and after-work coworker dinner parties have been drying up.

In response, many restaurants have pivoted to offering takeout items, but that limits your potential customer base largely to just the people who live in the immediate vicinity of the restaurant, and transitioning to takeout is especially hard to do when you specialize in ramen, something that’s tough to transport and meant to be eaten when it’s still piping hot. So to deal with those issues, ramen restaurant owner Mayuaka Umezawa has come up with a clever idea.

▼ You might remember Umezawa from our visit to Yagumo, the ramen restaurant she founded in Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward. Or maybe you remember her from her time with idol singer mega-group AKB48.

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While Yagumo has begun offering takeout and delivery service, those come with increased costs, not just to cover delivery but also in the form of single-use containers Yagumo needs to provide, as opposed to the reusable bowls eat-in diners would use. Moreover, Umezawa estimates that only customers living within about two kilometers of the restaurant are willing to go to the trouble of picking up takeout orders.

So to help make ends meet, Yagumo has begun offering online ramen pre-sales. Through a website Umezawa has set up, you can pre-purchase 2,000, 5,000, or 10,000 yen worth of ramen, to be redeemed at a later date. And any later date is fine, as there’s no expiration date for the pre-paid meal tickets, and unlike a gift certificate, you don’t have to use the whole sum in one sitting, since you can redeem them in increments of 100 yen. You even get a discount, as the 2,000-yen package is priced at 1,800 yen, the 5,000-yen on at 4,400 yen, and the 10,000-yen at 8,600 yen.

▼ Yagumo’s ramen is definitely worth waiting for.

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When we spoke to Umezawa about the plan, she told us “I’d like this to be a win-win situation for both our restaurants and our customers,” referring to Yagumo’s original location plus its second branch in Kanagawa Prefecture, Tokyo’s neighbor to the south which is also under an official state of emergency.

▼ The ramen pre-purchase page, which also has a 500-yen donation option, if you’re not feeling hungry but are feeling generous.

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It’s not just the restaurant’s finances Umezawa is concerned about either. “Even if I can’t pay myself anything, I want to make absolutely sure that the rest of the staff gets paid,” she says, and if you’d like to help her with that goal, the pre-purchase page can be found here.

Restaurant information

Yagumo / 八雲

Address: Tokyo-to, Katsushika-ku, Horikiri 3-4-13

東京都葛飾区堀切3丁目4番13号

Open 11 a.m.-3 p.m., 5 p.m.-10 p.m.

Closed Mondays

Website

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

-- Beautiful idol singer leaves show business, opens delicious ramen restaurant in Tokyo

-- Yaro Ramen to begin subscription service, become the Netflix of noodles

-- Mint chocolate tapioca ramen appears in Tokyo: Too much to handle or too good to believe?

© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

6 Comments
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yaay to her!!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I never heard of her as an idol, but she is beautiful and a great thinker. Women can save this world if we only could shut up men bureaucrats.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

"I never heard of her as an idol, but she is beautiful and a great thinker."

What if she were plain-looking, and fat, and middle-aged? Would she still be as valued to you?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

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