Conveyor belt sushi (回転寿司, kaitenzushi) celebrates its 50th anniversary on April 2008. Yoshiaki Shiraishi (1914-2001) opened the first conveyor belt sushi Mawaru Genroku Sushi in Osaka in 1958.
The concept has revolutionised the Japanese food culture, with thousands of conveyor belt sushi restaurants operating around the world.
Some might argue that the kaitenzushi is not of the highest quality, which is probably true… but it allows the consumers to have sushi at much cheaper price, and that’s probably why these restaurants are so popular. Most of the people who visit these places are aware of the flaw anyway.
Btw, the kaitenzushi also has a cute name in Japan… the kuru kuru sushi (くるくる寿司, literally sushi-go-around). The Australians are more direct with the name though, by simply calling it the train sushi.
[Reference from Wikipedia; Hat tip to Japan Navigator]
50 years??!!!! i thought it was invented in the 80’s :p
i’ve only had conveyor belt sushi once in china.
there aren’t much of these restaurants here in toronto.
but i thought it was more expensive than regular sushi, because it charges you by the number of plates you eat?
i’m not that sure…
but if i eat sushi, i will eat a lot.
so i would rather have all-you-can-eat, which there is a lot in toronto.
conveyor belt sushi is just for the sake of fun and watching the sushi go round and round =D
kyon… I thought that it was around late 70s. Both of us got it wrong obviously.
bb… all-you-can-eat is not really cheap in my place (Kuala Lumpur); most of those buffet restaurants are actually catering for mid-higher end market. I guess different places would have different food culture… even though we are basically talking about the same food.
all-you-can-eat here is cheap for lunch, but not for dinner.
i just think that if i could pay a set price and eat all i can, the price will probably be lower than conveyor belt sushi (adding up all the plates), because i can eat a lot =D
I guess it depends on how many plates you can devour… if you can eat 7-8 plates of sushi easily, it should be cheaper to go for a buffet.
[...] Posted by magnificentmenagerie on April 29, 2008 Conveyor belt sushi is 50 this month. [...]