Blog du Wren

Vending Machine Restaurants

I mentioned how the Japanese love their *, right? Well, it's not only street corners where you find them. Some restaurants use vending machines in place of counter people. You just put your money in, select the button of the item you want (assuming you can read what the button says, which I can't (although sometimes there are )), and then take the ticket over to the cooks, and you're good to go.

It is really a clever business model. It gets rid of the need for a person to deal with the money and orders and no one can be blamed for screwing up an order. All the restaurants of this type that I saw (which were pretty much in any big city) had only 2 cooks, and that's all. It really serves to keep costs down which is reflected in the price of the food. Most places, you could get udon or soba noodle soup for around $3.00. If you wanted a little meat in the form of a tempura prawn or processed fish tube*, it might cost a little extra.

Yep, once you learn how it works, vending machine restaurants are awesome. Before you know how they work, well, not so much*.

Friday April 3 2009

File under: travel, Japan

Toggle Comments (4)

comment?

on Fri 03rd Apr, 2009 05:54 pm PDT Dave said:
I pay for my haircut at a vending machine!
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on Fri 03rd Apr, 2009 07:57 pm PDT Sean said:
The TV said there are vending machines with pictures of girls and you can pick out whose dirty undies you want. Can you confirm this?
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on Fri 03rd Apr, 2009 08:28 pm PDT Joe said:
i like this
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on Fri 17th Apr, 2009 06:17 pm PDT Jenn said:
I thought this was really funny. It does sound like it streamlines the process though.
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