Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
Japanese convenience stores are just the best. They offer so much awesome stuff to eat that’s it’s honestly hard to choose what to get. The steamed pork buns are always a good call (especially if they’re "Final Fantasy"-flavored). But how can you pass up the onigiri rice balls stuffed with salmon, fried chicken bento boxed lunches, spaghetti with meat sauce, or shrimp cutlet sandwiches? Even dessert is a delicious dilemma: Do you opt for some of Japan’s amazing ice cream, or maybe a pastry filled with chocolate and whipped cream?
Hmm…you know what? Now that I think about it, maybe I should have said Japanese convenience stores are just the best, provided you’re not vegan.
But that gap in convenience store service is about to start getting filled with the opening of Vegan Store. A brand-new convenience store that just opened on Dec 3 in Tokyo’s Asakusa neighborhood, Vegan Store is true to its name, offering a variety of vegan food products, but with a Japanese twist. Inside the shop, you’ll find bento boxed lunches, onigiri rice balls, soft-serve ice cream, and other Japanese convenience store standards, but all made in-house to vegan standards. Vegan Store sells a selection of pre-packaged foods that are either certified vegan or determined to be so by the store’s product selection team.
▼ There is also an attached casual sit-down vegan restaurant, where all dishes are also gluten-free, with prices ranging from 500 to 3,000 yen.
While veganism has been growing in popularity in Japan recently, the movement still hasn’t reached the prominence it has overseas. This disparity no doubt played a part in the decision to open Vegan Store in Asakusa, where Tokyo’s most important Buddhist temple, Sensoji, is one of the city’s biggest draws for international travelers. As an additional accommodation to visitors from overseas, Vegan Store will also have an in-shop foreign currency converter machine, in case foreign customers’ yen for vegan fare is grater than the amount of yen in their wallets. If the store is a success, though, the company plans to open branches in other parts of Japan in the future.
Shop information
Vegan Store / ヴィーガンストア
Address: Tokyo-to, Taito-ku, Nishi Asakusa 2-25-9
東京都台東区西浅草2-25-9
Open 6 a.m.-11 p.m.
Closed Mondays (or Tuesday if the preceding Monday is a national holiday)
Source: PR Times
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
-- Japanese bakery’s new Vegan Curry Bread is awesome enough to please even carnivores【Taste test】
-- Tokyo vegan’s ramen recommendation is extremely off the mark
-- Cup of noodles for vegans! Japanese Zen Buddhist temple starts selling instant soba and udon
- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2019/12/04/tokyos-first-vegan-japanese-style-convenience-store-now-open-in-asakusa/
5 Comments
Login to comment
Pukey2
Yay! Now that's a good start.
kohakuebisu
The food in the photo and shop itself look better than a regular convenience store. I don't get the hype about conbini food in the first paragraph. In the city, any department store will have far better takeaway food.
Divine Wind
Great!
savethegaijin
I was with you until gluten free. I understand the need for gluten free foods, but they're always grouped together as if 'gluten' is a lifestyle choice instead of an allergy. Especially here in Japan for some reason... it's hard enough to find vegetarian/vegan food in Japan but you also are then met with, frankly, worse-tasting gluten free foods for no reason AND by making gluten-free a 'diet', you're more likely to be accidentally fed gluten by people who won't take it seriously when you have Celiac Disease which can be life threatening. Like 20 years ago when I was in middle school one of my friends was diagnosed with Celiac and, although it was tough back then for him, he would tell you that it's harder now because everyone thinks you're just a fad-dieter. At least when we were 12 he could tell people he was allergic to wheat and people would take him seriously.
I'm not a vegan but I eat a mostly plant based diet. I would LOVE to have some more vegetarian restaurants in Japan but seriously, 9/10 it's also gluten free so you already know what it's going to taste like. Not to mention, most people who are Celiac aren't vegan. It would probably be nice for them to have options that aren't plant based as well.
Anyone who's ever had to make gluten-free AND vegan food will know how hard it is. The majority of people in the world would benefit from eating less meat and frankly it's not going to help the cause if the only vegan restaurants are also all gluten-free. Seriously, go have some gluten free pasta or bread. It's not great. Gluten tastes delicious and is perfectly healthy for non-celiac vegans/vegetarians to eat.