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The story
According to reports, same-store sales for Japan’s three major beef bowl chains in September 2026 showed Yoshinoya up 10.1% year-on-year and Sukiya up 8.4%, both strong performances, while Matsuya alone fell 0.6% — the only chain to post a year-on-year decline. Matsuya, the cheapest of the three, is now facing questions about why it’s struggling and whether a 20-yen price hike can turn things around. On 5ch, many posters pointed to the confusing ticket-machine and touch-panel ordering systems, while the discussion spread to taste preferences, perceptions of the customer base, and the relationship between prices and wages — with no single cause for the slump agreed upon.
Something unusual is happening to sales at Japan’s three major beef bowl chains. September 2026 same-store sales showed Yoshinoya up 10.1% year-on-year and Sukiya up 8.4%, both strong, while Matsuya fell well behind the other two with a 0.6% drop — the only one of the three to decline from the previous year.
J-CAST
Source: news.livedoor.com / Original article here
What people said
and I asked for extra red pickled ginger (beni shoga),
but they told me I could only have 3 pieces.
The little bag only has a tiny bit in it,
so I asked if they'd just put some of the in-store red ginger into my bento,
and they said no to that too.
So I said fine, I'll eat here then,
but they said no, it's a takeout bento.
If I eat in the store, I get unlimited red ginger, right?
Why is it only the takeout boxes that get rationed?
Honestly, I don't even care about the beef bowl itself
I just want the red ginger
Compared to other beef bowl chains, Yoshinoya's red ginger is the best
The red ginger is tastier than the beef bowl itself
If I can't have the red ginger, I don't even want the beef bowl
I'm genuinely furious at Yoshinoya right now
Other chains let you take home as many as you want, you know?
Just make it yourself
Buy ginger and plum vinegar at the supermarket and pickle it — you can eat as much as you want that way
You can actually buy just Yoshinoya's red ginger on Amazon ("尼" is net slang for Amazon)
This, seriously
Exactly that
Seriously, at the combined Matsuya/Matsunoya locations you can't even tell which store's menu has the item you want, it's like come on
That complaint's all over social media
If you're going to fuss over hygiene like that, you should just never eat out at all
If the alternative is eating at the other two, I'd rather eat something else entirely
Out of these three, Yoshinoya's definitely the tastiest
Matsuya's curry isn't even good — the beef rice (gyumeshi) is the only thing worth the price
I used to eat the beef sukiyaki set a lot, but it's gotten so expensive it's borderline not worth it anymore
Well, every other chain has raised prices too much too
Honestly I'm at the point of just thinking I should buy a bento for lunch at work instead
It takes about 40 minutes though
If you spent those 40 minutes working at Tokyo's minimum wage instead
how much would that be?
That's the point
I almost never eat beef bowl at home
I'm talking about weekday lunch near the office
Though I guess that tells me you don't actually have a job
People struggling with the ticket machine (and not just old folks)
People aggressively going back for seconds, multiple times
People eating their curry while loudly clanking the spoon against the plate
Conclusion:
This isn't a place women or families go to. The sales decline was inevitable
I sometimes see women at Matsuya, but never families
That's probably not even their target market, they don't have that kind of menu either
And you rarely see foreign customers either, though plenty of the staff are foreign
Even though they've renovated the stores to look nicer
it's more that the image of the customer base just isn't great
Even though the sticker price has gone up, wage inflation means it hasn't actually gotten more expensive at all
Minimum wage has risen a lot, sure
but average wages have barely moved, and on top of that social insurance premiums keep climbing
so relative to the average person's disposable income, hasn't a large beef bowl actually gotten a lot pricier?
That number's meaningless since rent and cost of living have gone up too
Even if the beef bowl price has risen at the same rate as wages, electricity, gasoline, gas, and rent have all spiked so much faster that your purchasing power has still dropped
What's with this 'come pick it up when your number's called' system
Makes me want to punch something
If guys like this stop showing up, the self-service switch will have been a total success
so I mostly just get takeout now
and eat it at home at my own pace with other food and drinks I've prepared myself
The rate of loud open-mouth chewers in there is abnormally high
If the plan is to eat at home anyway,
wouldn't it be better to just buy whatever bento you like at the supermarket, or cook for yourself?
This whole thread is about lunch spots near the office for salarymen
If I specifically want beef bowl I'd still go to Matsuya, but honestly I haven't eaten beef bowl in a while anyway
Same here, ever since I started going to My Curry Shokudo,
I haven't really gone to Matsuya much either
If you're going to order a set meal at Matsuya, you get better quality for the same money ordering a set meal at Matsunoya instead
The store count's shrinking, you know
It's the customers who gave up on this place
What they cut was those absurdly overpriced set meals, right
I think pretty much anyone could do better than this, not just you
Maybe the people at the top aren't even looking for something convenient and easy to use. Maybe it's deliberately made that confusing to push up the average spend per customer?
Background and Key Points of This Debate
In recent years, Japan’s three major beef bowl chains have all raised prices one after another in response to rising ingredient and labor costs, and Matsuya’s 20-yen hike is simply following that trend. However, Matsuya has a history of rolling out ticket-machine and touch-panel ordering more aggressively than its rivals, and complaints about how confusing that system is came up repeatedly in the thread. On the other hand, comments about the customer base’s image (such as #134) reflect individual posters’ personal impressions and aren’t backed by any sales data tying them directly to the decline. The debate comparing wages to beef bowl prices (#140, #149, #153) is also easy to misread, since a rise in the minimum wage and growth in average disposable income are two different things, and which measure you use changes the conclusion. Overall, the thread never reached a consensus on whether taste, UI, customer demographics, or price is the main reason behind Matsuya’s slump.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “🍚 Among the Big Three Beef Bowl Chains, Why Is Only the Cheapest, Matsuya, Struggling While Yoshinoya and Sukiya Thrive… Can a 20-Yen Price Hike Turn It Around?“.
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