Japanese sushi train restaurant opens Beijing outlet

Sushiro, a popular Japanese sushi train restaurant, opened its first outlet in Beijing at downtown Xidan Joy City on Wednesday, adding to its more than 40 restaurants on the Chinese mainland.

Sushiro, which aims to continuously expand its presence in China, is a brand affiliated to Japanese group Food & Life Companies.

Founded in 1984, it launched its first restaurant on the mainland in Guangzhou, Guangdong province in 2021, and operates several more in cities such as Shenzhen, Guangdong province; Chengdu, Sichuan province; Wuhan, Hubei province and Tianjin.

The company said it is bullish on the growth potential in the country and is considering opening more stores in the near future.

"Unlike other restaurants, we launched self-ordering digital screens and the conveyor belt system for food delivery for each table at the Beijing restaurant, making the ordering process more fun and convenient," said Kazunari Matsuda, general manager of Beijing Sushiro Restaurants Co Ltd.

"Sushi train restaurant is more suitable for dine-in experiences, given its unique features. A large proportion of our customers are aged between 18 and 35, including college students and office workers. At our restaurants in Shenzhen and Tianjin, we have also seen many foreign guests from Europe and the United States," Matsuda said.

Sushiro offers food delivery services in southern Chinese cities, but not yet in northern ones, he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly affect its operations, and the brand has stuck to in-store cooking, instead of relying on central kitchens.

According to the company, the prices of sushi range from 10 yuan ($1.4) per plate to a maximum 28 yuan, enabling more people to easily experience the authentic sushi train cuisine.

Sushiro operates some 30 restaurants in Hong Kong and more than 40 outlets in Taiwan province. In Asia, its total number of restaurants has topped 800, including outlets in Thailand and Singapore.

In addition to sushi trains, various kinds of restaurants with different Japanese cuisines have expanded their presence in China in the past few years. These include izakaya, Japanese grill and sukiyaki restaurants, and their dishes focus on various types of food, with some also offering sushi.

Last year, the proportion of overseas outlets of large-scale Japanese catering enterprises exceeded 40 percent for the first time. Among these, some 78,000 overseas outlets of Japanese restaurants operated in China, far exceeding its next biggest market, the US, Nikkei Inc reported.

Japanese cuisine has found many fans in China.

Data from domestic review app Dazhong Dianping showed that as of June last year, Japanese cuisine ranked as the sixth most popular one on the Chinese mainland, and the only overseas cuisine category among the top six kinds of cuisines.

In addition to Japanese restaurants that have been constantly expanding in the Chinese market, many local Chinese brands that focus on providing Japanese cuisine have also emerged, but they still need some time to expand nationwide, a report by the Chinabaogao.com database showed.