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The story
An article reporting on the strong business performance of set-meal chains like Yayoiken, Ootoya, and Skylark’s “Gusto Shokudo” sparked a 5ch thread asking why set meals feel like a better deal than ramen. With ramen bowls now routinely topping ¥1,000, commenters piled in to say that set meals offer more dishes and better nutritional balance. Some pointed to business-side differences like ingredient cost ratios, labor costs, and whether food can be prepped in advance, while others noted that independently run set-meal restaurants and neighborhood Chinese diners are disappearing due to a lack of successors — turning it into a debate that went well beyond simple personal preference.
Right now, “set meal” chains are gaining popularity. Businesses like Yayoiken and Ootoya are performing well, and major family-restaurant operator Skylark Holdings has been expanding its set-meal offerings under Gusto’s “Gusto Shokudo” branding, while also bringing Shinpachi Shokudo into its group to accelerate its push into the set-meal business.
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Expert Topics
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
It'll go under even without being called out
Not "still" — set meals are overwhelmingly better.
Though it depends on the menu.
If it's mostly fried food, they're about the same.
Making stock from pork bone, chicken bone, AND a ton of dried seafood —
that's piling on way too much cost lol
And then dumping in tons of fat and MSG on top of that lol
So you could say set meals are the better deal
I used to work part-time at a noodle shop —
set meals can be prepped ahead of time,
but noodles have to go out right after they're made
At those "artisanal" ramen shops the cost ratio can top 80%
No set-meal place runs that high
I want them to bring back the grilled atka mackerel set meal they had before that one
I think that's a different thing
Cafeteria ramen and Sugakiya (a cheap ramen chain) are different too
But yeah, I won't order ramen once it's over ¥1,000
Compare at the same price point and you'll often eat better food with a set meal than with ramen.
Set meals have more dishes and are just superior as cooking.
Also, ramen is way too hit-or-miss.
You get force-fed the owner's "signature masterpiece" or some mysterious personal obsession,
and getting charged a premium for something that isn't even tasty just because they claim it took effort — that's unbearable.
And the biggest reason is that a lot of ramen shop owners have a bad attitude.
Since it's so easy to open a shop, sketchy types get in and the number of idiot owners keeps rising.
Seriously, this.
Every reason set meals > ramen is right there.
That's just a matter of taste.
Everyone's different.
It's got nothing to do with which dish is "superior."
Eat what you feel like eating.
Either way, eating out tends to mean heavier seasoning and worse value overall.
Even in the West, people cook for themselves a lot, and it's normal for men to cook too.
Lately even New Yorkers are getting into bento boxes.
Well, eating out in the West has gotten so inflated that people are starting to resent tipping too.
Japan's about the only place where people make miso soup and cook rice from scratch first thing in the morning.
What year did you time-warp in from lol
Maybe you've only ever eaten ramen at places like Hidakaya or Bamiyan
You used to be able to get a ¥500 lunch at Bamiyan, right?
Though maybe not ramen specifically
Kourakuen has a one-coin (¥500) option too
What a boring era this has become.
If you're running the shop out of your own home, there's no rent to pay, so there's no middleman cut —
that's how they can keep it relatively cheap.
After decades, once the building's aged out, it's hard to hand down through inheritance,
so with no successor, the shop just closes.
Those set-meal places run by elderly couples have really disappeared.
Same with neighborhood Chinese diners — it's a successor problem.
Everyone complains eating out is so expensive, yet Uber Eats is booming — doesn't add up
I only order when it's the same price as eating in-store, but it's convenient
Uber's cooling off these days.
Lots of competitors have entered the market,
and the ones matching in-store pricing or offering free delivery fees are winning out.
Ramen bulks up with noodles or rice, so you gain weight.
Vegetables actually cost more than rice or noodles.
But ramen does take a lot of labor and utility costs to make the soup.
Ramen does the same thing, piling on bean sprouts for "volume" (lol) —
that's just dumb
Ramen shops can fake a sense of volume just by piling those on,
and it reels in gullible customers — way too good a deal for the shop
That's just the bean sprouts though —
everything else is high-cost
If you go for a delicate flavor, the bean sprouts end up dominating the taste,
and you get this absurdly strong, smelly soup.
The only ramen that can get away with bean sprouts is Sapporo miso ramen.
For soba or udon, I think discount-store noodles with diluted mentsuyu (noodle dipping sauce) are good enough
Ramen shops stay open until around 3pm, but soba shops start closing around 1pm — all I picture is crowds if you go at lunchtime.
Also, at night they turn into mainly a drinking spot.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The rise in ramen prices stems from “aspirational” broth-making that combines pork-bone and chicken-bone stock with large amounts of dried seafood, plus an obsession with ingredients said to push the cost ratio above 80%. Set-meal chains, by contrast, have a structure that makes it easier to keep labor and utility costs down, since prep can be made in advance and stores can run on existing property assets. Thread commenters also pointed out that independently run set-meal restaurants and neighborhood Chinese diners — often run by elderly couples — are closing down because aging buildings and a lack of successors make inheritance and renovation too burdensome, and are being replaced by major chains like Yayoiken and Gusto Shokudo. A point easy to miss from scattered comments alone: a high cost ratio doesn’t automatically mean “good value” — it needs to be weighed against total costs, including labor and store operating expenses.
*This article is compiled by excerpting and summarizing the 5ch (News Express+) thread “ƒ‰[ƒƒ“1000‰~’´‚¦‚Åu’èHv‚ªÄ•]‰¿@‚È‚º’èH‚̓‰[ƒƒ“‚æ‚è‚àuŠ„ˆÀv‚ÉŠ´‚¶‚é‚Ì‚©H [ƒpƒ“ƒiEƒRƒbƒ^š].”
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