A conveyor belt sushi restaurant.

An open plan conveyor belt sushi restaurant at London Paddington Railway Station

Conveyor belt sushi is the popular English translation for the Japanese fast-food kaiten-zushi (Japanese: 回転寿司, literally: rotating sushi), also known as kuru kuru sushi (Japanese: くるくる寿司) or even Sushi-go-round (mainly by foreigners living in Japan). Kaiten-zushi is a sushi restaurant where the plates with the sushi are placed on a rotating conveyor belt that winds through the restaurant and moves past every table and counter seat. Customers may place special orders, but most simply pick their selections from a steady stream of fresh sushi moving along the conveyor belt. The final bill is calculated based on the number and type of plates of the consumed sushi. Besides conveyor belts, some restaurants use a fancier form of presentation such as miniature wooden "sushi boats" traveling small canals, or miniature locomotive cars. Image File history File links KuruKuruSushiRestaurant. ... Image File history File links KuruKuruSushiRestaurant. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2048x1536, 840 KB) Summary 作者(Author)：陈昀 Location: Paddington Station London Licensing File links The following pages link to this file: Conveyor belt sushi User:Chenyun Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2048x1536, 840 KB) Summary 作者(Author)：陈昀 Location: Paddington Station London Licensing File links The following pages link to this file: Conveyor belt sushi User:Chenyun Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create... For other uses, see London (disambiguation). ... Paddington Station, March 2005 during rush hour Paddington station or London Paddington station is a major National Rail and London Underground station complex in the Paddington area of London. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... One of the most popular forms of fast food in Australia is a meat pie Typical forms of fast food - potato scallops and chicken pieces Fast food is food which is prepared and served quickly at outlets called fast-food restaurants. ... In Japanese cuisine, sushi (Japanese: is a food made of vinegared rice combined with various toppings or fillings. ... Toms Restaurant, a restaurant in New York made familiar by Suzanne Vega and the television sitcom Seinfeld For other uses, see Restaurant (disambiguation). ... Insert non-formatted text here Point of contact between a power transmission belt and its pulley. ... Insert non-formatted text here Point of contact between a power transmission belt and its pulley. ...

Visiting a conveyor belt sushi restaurant

Genroku Zushi

The most remarkable feature of conveyor belt sushi is the stream of plates winding through the restaurant. The selection is usually not limited to sushi, but may also include drink in Tetra Paks, fruits, desserts, soups, and other foods. Beer can be ordered from the attendants, often served with an empty plate to keep track of the total bill. The conveyor belt sushi restaurants are usually considered toward the bottom end of both price and quality compared to traditional sushi restaurants, but have a popular appeal nonetheless. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (480x640, 176 KB) genroku－Zushi The total headquarters（Higasi-Osaka Japan） photography day April, 2005 photography person MASA File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (480x640, 176 KB) genroku－Zushi The total headquarters（Higasi-Osaka Japan） photography day April, 2005 photography person MASA File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Tetra Pak, (of Swedish origin), is a multinational food packaging company. ... Fruit stall in Barcelona, Catalonia. ... A selection of desserts Dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a dinner, usually consisting of sweet food but sometimes of a strongly-flavored one, such as some cheeses. ... Soup is a savoury liquid food that is made by combining ingredients, such as meat, vegetables and beans in stock or hot water, until the flavor is extracted, forming a broth. ... A selection of bottled beers A selection of cask beers Beer is the worlds oldest and most popular alcoholic beverage, selling more than 133 billion litres (35,000 million gallons) a year. ...

Busy sushi restaurants serve the best quality, as the sushi gets eaten faster and does not get dry while rotating for a long time. Some restaurants may even have RFID tags or other systems in place to remove sushi that has rotated for too long. Some inexpensive conveyor belt sushi restaurants may imitate an expensive dish using less expensive ingredients. For example, they may replace chopped fatty tuna belly meat with other fish meat. However, some larger chains can still keep down costs for quality food by ordering in large amounts. An EPC RFID tag used for Wal-Mart Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. ... Species See text Tuna, sometimes called tunafish, are several species of ocean-dwelling fish in the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. ...

Special orders

If customers cannot find their desired sushi, they can also make special orders. Sometimes speaker phones are available for this purpose above the conveyor belt. If a small quantity of sushi is ordered, it is also placed on the conveyor belt, but marked in a way so other customers know that this dish is ordered by someone. Usually, the plate with the sushi sits on top of a labeled cylindrical stand to indicate that this is a special order. For large orders the sushi may also be brought to the customer by the attendants.

Necessary condiments and tools are usually found near the seats, for example pickled ginger, chopsticks, soy sauce, and small dishes for the soy sauce. Wasabi may also be either at the seat, or pots of wasabi are placed on the conveyor belt. Self-served tea and ice water is usually complimentary, with cups stacked on a shelf above the conveyor belt and teabags or green tea powder in a storage container on the table. There is also a hot water faucet at the tables to make tea. On the shelves are also usually wet paper towels and plastic boxes to store sushi for take-out customers. Gari is a type of tsukemono (pickled vegetables). ... Chopsticks, a pair of small even-length tapered sticks, are the traditional eating utensils of East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, the four chopstick countries) as well as Thailand, where they are now restricted to just soup and noodles since the introduction of Western utensils by King Rama V... Soy sauce (US) or soya sauce is a fermented sauce made from soybeans (soya beans), roasted grain, water and salt originating in China. ... Binomial name Wasabia japonica Matsum. ... Tea leaves in a Chinese gaiwan. ... A tea bag is a small bag that holds tea leaves or tisane infusions, either the amount needed to brew a single cup of tea; popular in countries such as the USA, or a larger one, of which one or two are used for a whole teapot; found in countries... Green tea (绿茶) is tea that has undergone minimal oxidation during processing. ... A paper towel is a piece of absorbent paper made for the general purposes of towels, but most often used for drying hands. ... Plastic covers a range of synthetic or semisynthetic polymerization products. ...

Customer's view at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant.

Image File history File links This is a photo of a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. ... Image File history File links This is a photo of a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. ...

Billing

The bill is calculated by counting the number and type of plates of the consumed sushi. Plates with different color, pattern, or shape have different prices, usually ranging from 100 yen to 500 yen. The cost of the different plates is shown on signboards or posters in the restaurant. In general, cheap items come on plain plates, and the level of plate decoration is related to the price. The most expensive items tend to come on golden colored plates. Expensive items may also be placed on two plates at the same time, with the price being the sum of the price tag associated with the individual plates. Some conveyor belt sushi restaurant chains, such as Kappa Sushi or Otaru Zushi, have a fixed price of 100 yen for every plate. This is similar to the phenomenon of 100-yen shops. Finally, there may also be all you can eat sushi restaurants, where the customer can eat as much as he/she can for a fixed price. A button above the conveyor belt can be used to call the attendants to count the plates. Some restaurants also have a counting machine where the customer drops the plates so that they can be counted automatically. Japanese 10 yen coin (obverse) showing Phoenix Hall of Byodoin Yen is the currency used in Japan. ... Daiso at Hanaten Osaka-City Daiso at Kohnoike Higashi Osaka-City 100-Emon at Kohnoike Higashi Osaka-City 100 Yen Shops (or One Coin Shops) have steadily gained in popularity over the last several years, perhaps reflecting a worse economic situation in Japan. ...

Targeted customers

Conveyor belt sushi restaurants are often frequented by value-minded consumers and those who may not have time for a leisurely meal. They are also popular among foreigners and families with children, as no special Japanese language skills are needed to read a menu or to order. Furthermore, there is no danger of leftover food for small eaters or remaining appetite for big eaters due to the endless supply of small portions available. Japanese (日本語, ) is a language spoken by over 127 million people, mainly in Japan, but also by Japanese emigrant communities around the world. ...

The traditional sushi shop has its own special language, such as using murasaki (meaning "purple") for soy sauce instead of the usual word, shōyu. Sushi chefs were said to treat customers better if they knew the correct jargon. One of the reasons why conveyor-belt sushi has become successful is said to be that there is no need to learn the special words and culture of the traditional sushi shop.

A note of etiquette: it is considered bad manners to put a plate of sushi back on the belt even if you immediately change your mind about having picked it up.

History and economics

Conveyor belt sushi was invented by Yoshiaki Shiraishi (1914-2001), who had problems staffing his small sushi restaurant and had difficulties managing the restaurant by himself. He got the idea of a conveyor belt sushi after watching beer bottles on a conveyor belt in an Asahi brewery. After 5 years of development, including the design of the conveyor belt and the speed of operations, Mr. Shiraishi opened the first conveyor belt sushi Mawaru Genroku Sushi in Osaka in 1958, quickly creating a chain of 240 restaurants all over Japan (although the number reduced to 11 in 2001). 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... Asahi Breweries, Ltd. ... Osaka City Hall Mayor Junichi Seki Address 〒530-8201 Osaka-shi,Kita-ku Nakanoshima 1-3-20 Phone number 06-6208-8181 Official website: Osaka City , Osaka ) is the capital of Osaka Prefecture and the third-largest city in Japan, with a population of 2. ... 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...

Initially, all customers were seated to face the conveyor belt, but this was not popular with groups. Subsequently, tables were added at right angles to the conveyor belt, allowing up to 6 people to sit at one table in a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. This also reduced the length of conveyor belt needed to serve a certain number of people.

A conveyor belt sushi boom started in 1970 after a conveyor belt sushi restaurant served sushi on the Osaka World Expo. Another boom started in 1980, when eating out became more popular, and finally in the late 1990s, when inexpensive restaurants became popular after the burst of the economic bubble. Mr. Shiraishi also invented a robotic sushi, served by robots, but this idea had no commercial success. 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... This is a list of worlds fairs (with notable permanent buildings built). ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... Seinfeld was a pop cultural phenomenon during the 90s and became one of the most popular TV programs ever. ...

Conveyor belt sushi is a market of 240 billion yen annually in Japan, with almost 3000 restaurants (data from 2001). This popular type of restaurant can also be found in other places in the world. However, some traditionalists criticize conveyor belt sushi restaurants as destroying the ritual of eating sushi as many traditional sushi restaurants are driven out of business under competition. 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value, which is prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of sex A ritual may be performed at regular intervals, or on specific occasions, or at the discretion of individuals or communities. ...

The ideal speed of the belt is considered to be 8 cm per second, slow enough to ensure a safe transport, but fast enough to bring enough volume to the customers. Using a conveyor belt also reduces the number of waiters needed. A fast belt also causes the sushi to dry faster. The belt usually runs clockwise to make it easier to lift the plates off the belt with the left hand while the right hand holds the chopsticks.

A new variant of conveyor belt sushi has a touch screen monitor at every table, showing a virtual aquarium with many fishes. The customer can order the sushi by touching the type of fish, which then is brought to the table by conveyor belt. This style reduced the percentage of excess sushi that was produced but not eaten from normally 7% to 2% of the total.

See also

• Dim sum

Dim sum (Chinese: 點心; Cantonese IPA: dɪm2sɐm1; Pinyin: diǎnxīn; Wade-Giles: tien-hsin; literally dot heart or order heart, meaning order to ones hearts content; also commonly translated as touch the heart, dotted heart, or snack), a Cantonese term, is usually a light meal or brunch, eaten sometime...

External links

• Japan's Sushi Industry Seeks Opportunities Overseas