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The story
A thread titled ‘Things I Know About Yoshinoya’ popped up in 5ch’s Anything Live-Viewing board (Nandemo Jikkyou G), and users piled on with trivia about the beef bowl chain. Surprisingly obscure tidbits poured in — the branch in front of Yurakucho Station that’s the highest-grossing in Japan, outlets inside highway service areas and even the Diet Building, and the claim that the first-ever store was in Tsukiji. Opinions split when the conversation turned to how Yoshinoya compares to rivals Sukiya and Matsuya, with debate over beef thickness and how sweet the sauce should be.
What people said
On the east side of JR Yurakucho Station (the side with Kotsu Kaikan and Itocia), there's the most famous Yoshinoya in Japan!
Apparently it's the highest-grossing location in the whole country.
This is Yurakucho Itocia, shot from the southbound side of JR Yurakucho Station (toward Shimbashi, Hamamatsucho, Shinagawa)
JR Yurakucho Station
These days beef bowl chains like Yoshinoya, Sukiya, and Matsuya have even opened branches in highway service areas and parking areas.
*By the way, the photo is Ebina SA on the Daiichi-Tokai Expressway (Tomei Expressway).
There used to be a Yoshinoya at Daikoku PA on the Shuto Expressway too, but it's closed now.
*McDonald's also pulled out of Daikoku PA.
There's also a Yoshinoya at Ishikawa PA on the Chuo Expressway (Hachioji, Tokyo)!
The Yoshinoya logo
That's a cool logo!
There's actually a branch inside the National Diet Building.
They even have an exclusive menu item there — the Kuroge Wagyu Don (Japanese black beef rice bowl)!
It's said that Yoshinoya owes a lot of its fame to the Weekly Shonen Jump manga 'Kinnikuman.'
It's the favorite food of the main character, Kinniku Suguru!
Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu — Kinnikuman! Fri, Sat, Sun — time to play! Yahoo! (lyrics from the anime's ending theme)
Wishing a beef bowl was still 80 yen, on this fine Friday
I used to do the 'Kinnikuman Exercise' routine back in kindergarten
Takes me back
Kinnikuman was originally tied to Nakau, not Yoshinoya
Former SMAP member Takuya Kimura has appeared in Yoshinoya commercials.
The rabbit girl character 'Mabel-chan'
Hey, Tetsugaku News (a popular 5ch summary blog)!
Put this one in a roundup!
By the way, Mabel-chan is from Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, so she's probably at the Sendai Station East Exit branch (or maybe the West Exit one)!?
Agreed
I don't dislike Sukiya or Matsuya either, but Yoshinoya has the best-tasting beef, hands down
I feel like the others just mask it with sauce flavor… 😅
Apparently 1.3mm is the thickness they settled on because it tastes best.
At 1.2mm the meat falls apart, and at 1.4mm it gets tough, or so they say.
The sauce has the best balance and depth too.
Matsuya's is too sweet, and Sukiya's has too much ginger.
I thought Sukiya was plenty sweet too…
Yoshinoya's the one where you can actually taste the beef clearly
So even 0.1mm off and it just doesn't work, huh…
Even the frozen beef bowl topping is just as good as what you get in the restaurant!
That's rough… 😢
Honestly, that was just plain stupid
If they'd treated them well, they could've made a fortune off collabs…
Wasn't Tsukiji the first store to begin with?
There's also a Yoshinoya at JR Oyama Station in Oyama City, Tochigi Prefecture!
And it's accessible from both inside and outside the ticket gates!
*Oyama Station is served by the Tohoku Shinkansen, the JR Utsunomiya Line (Tohoku Main Line), the Mito Line, and the Ryomo Line.
*Right next to the Yoshinoya is a bakery called Little Mermaid.
• Hakuoh University
A prestigious private university on the east side of Oyama Station.
The Faculty of Law and Faculty of Business have campuses right by the station (only the Faculty of Education is elsewhere).
You're right that the Tsukiji Yoshinoya was the first store
But the one I wanted to go to is 'Tsukiji Yoshinoya' (a specific gourmet-menu location)
My bad
Still, that's pretty cheap!
80 years, nothing but beef bowls
Mizuho Matsuda was a legend!
By the way, the current president is apparently from Toyama Prefecture
At one point they actually sold ostrich meat
Yeah, only 7 branches for a city of 500,000 people does seem way too few…
By the way, the Cainz Utsunomiya Techno store is located in the Kiyohara district (east of the Kinugawa River)
The same complex also has Kasumi (a supermarket in the Aeon group), Cainz (a home center), and Kourakuen (a ramen chain)!
The nearest stations are Yuinomori-higashi or Hagadai on the LRT line (Haga Town)
By the way, present-day Utsunomiya is almost entirely former Kawachi District (same as Kaminokawa Town), except for the Kiyohara district east of the Kinugawa River.
Only Kiyohara was formerly Kiyohara Village in Haga District (the same Haga District that now includes Moka City and Haga Town).
There's also a soba-serving version called 'Soba-dokoro Yoshinoya'
Look for the blue sign instead of the usual orange one!
By the way, Soba-dokoro Yoshinoya locations seem to be declining in recent years, probably because they're costlier to run… 😢
The thick-cut kakuni (braised pork belly) set meal
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Yoshinoya is a long-running chain founded in 1899 that has built its identity around ‘nothing but beef bowls.’ The 1980 corporate reorganization (effectively a bankruptcy) mentioned in the thread is generally attributed to beef import restrictions and soaring costs from the oil crisis, and the company stuck with its single-minded focus on the beef bowl even afterward. Where the thread’s opinions diverged was over how Yoshinoya’s flavor compares to rivals Sukiya and Matsuya — some claims about beef thickness and sauce sweetness are drawn from each company’s public information, while others are just posters’ personal impressions, and it’s worth noting the line between the two isn’t always clear. Likewise, the connection to the manga ‘Kinnikuman’ and the story about how the chain treated manga duo Yudetamago aren’t backed by any official account from Yoshinoya itself — they’re best read as anecdotes circulating on the forum rather than confirmed fact.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Anything Live-Viewing board) thread ‘[Ultimate Beef Bowl Shop] Things I Know About Yoshinoya [YOSHINOYA]‘.
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