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The story
Starting November 9, Tsukiji Gindako will open reservations for a campaign offering all-you-can-eat takoyaki for 45 minutes at 1,089 yen. For an extra 275 yen, customers can also get unlimited topping items and soft drinks. In the 5ch thread reacting to the announcement, some praised the generosity of unlimited takoyaki — normally priced around 100 yen per piece — at this price, while plenty of others questioned how many pieces anyone could realistically eat in 45 minutes, given the wait between ordering and the takoyaki actually coming out fresh.
Gindako all-you-can-eat! Eat as much as you want for 45 minutes at 1,089 yen — reservations open November 9
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Tsukiji Gindako to hold “All-You-Can-Eat Takoyaki” campaign — 45 minutes for 1,089 yen, reservations open November 9
Source: ascii.jp / Original article here
What people said
Did a kindergartener write this? "Unlimited drinks too"?
Hold a soft drink in your mouth while you eat takoyaki
Wash it down with a gulp after every bite
This is how you win
Go read Re: #1 again.
If all-you-can-eat is 1,089 yen that's super cheap, but if I'm eating that much takoyaki I'd want some beer too.
I'm confident I could eat 30+ pieces, but I bet you end up waiting forever for them to fry the next batch.
A homemade takoyaki party is unbeatable.
Don't lump a luxury car in with a kei car
↑
I'm telling you not to compare takoyaki to cars at all
There's no way the griddle can keep up once a crowd rushes in.
They definitely haven't thought that far ahead.
They've run this before, so it was probably fine — they're limiting the number of people too.
It's like those giant bucket puddings — I think there's a feeling of wanting to try it at least once.
It's one of those things that feels like you've done it, but actually haven't.
And on top of that, it's the almighty, premium Gindako we're talking about.
Misread that as "daimyo procession" for a second.
Why not quit pachinko?
It's not like people are gonna eat some insane amount, so it should be fine.
if all-you-can-eat is 1,100 yen, that's a pretty solid deal.
They must be raking in insane profits normally.
I thought they'd been scaling the business back, but
well, it's a good deal for customers either way.
Last time I was in Osaka I did a takoyaki tasting run across a bunch of shops for dinner, and 32 pieces was no problem — I still wasn't full.
I'm super bad with hot food ("cat tongue"), so even 10 would be impossible if they're served piping hot.
It's people like you with broken satiety centers who end up putting shops out of business.
You keep ordering but nothing arrives before time's up.
This always ends with a "scam!" uproar — it's basically a package deal at this point.
This is an annual thing, they've been running it for years already.
Scarf it down, order again, wait another 10 minutes for the next round.
Two refills might be the limit.
Money-wise it looks like you'd come out ahead, but
it's not really a product worth going to that much trouble for.
Even after reading it, I still don't get it.
Hint → it's reservation-only.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Tsukiji Gindako’s “all-you-can-eat” promotion has been run before, and commenters on the thread pointed out it’s become an “annual tradition” — this isn’t the chain’s first attempt at it. Where opinions split was over how to read the 45-minute time limit: since freshly fried takoyaki takes time to prepare between ordering and serving, how many trays a customer can actually get through ends up depending heavily on how crowded the store is, even with a reservation system and capacity limits in place. Some drew price comparisons to frozen takoyaki sold at supermarkets, but that comparison doesn’t quite hold up, since a specialty shop serving fresh-fried takoyaki on site is a fundamentally different product from frozen food. Given the regular price (around 100 yen per piece), many felt that 1,089 yen itself was a fair price, and most of the criticism focused less on the offer itself than on the practical question of whether it’s physically possible to eat your fill within the time given.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “Gindako offers all-you-can-eat for 1,089 yen — plus 275 yen for unlimited toppings and soft drinks too [Images]“.
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