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Family restaurants are a type of casual dining restaurants where food is served on
platters and the diners serve themselves. The emergence of family restaurants in Japan
has filled the gap between gourmet restaurants and fast food joints. A restaurant called
Skylark, which is considered as the first family restaurant in Japan, was opened in
Fuchu, Tokyo, by Kotobuki Food in 1970. The company, now called Skylark Group,
has then converted the Skylark eateries into a new restaurant chain called Gusto,
which is one of the brands we will investigate in this report. Since then, family
restaurants developed rapidly in Japan. According to Fuji Keizai, the sale of family
restaurants is 1.436 trillion in 2010, falling from the peak of 1.7 trillion in 2000.
There were around 12240 family restaurant outlets throughout Japan in last year.
They are usually located in the cities and suburbs area. Despite the declining trend in
recent years, family restaurants still hold an important position in the restaurants
serving industry in Japan. Having known the development history of family
restaurants, lets have a deeper understanding on what they really are.
Family restaurants pose a casual feeling to their customers and offer a diversified
menu rather than specializing in specific type or style of cooking. The basic menu in a
family restaurant consists of 55-65 items, excluding sets (i.e. rice & drink set, bread
and coffee set). The menu is generally divided into categories of: steak, hamburger
steaks, chicken, spaghetti, doria-gratin, Japanese, Chinese, salads, side menus,
desserts and drinks. A lot of them also provide modest alcoholic beverages and free
coffee refills. The food served is in moderate quality. The intense competitive arena
of restaurants serving industry force family restaurants to place a premium on
products that is seen to be healthy and can be differentiated from competitors.
In addition to the variety of food, the prices of them are also attractive.
According to market researcher Fuji Keizai Co.'s Shuten Tanaka, the expense per
head in family restaurants is around 500 to 3,000 per head comparing to 400
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-2000 per head for fast food chains and 1200 to 5000 per head for upper class
restaurants. In fact, the menus of family restaurants are carefully decided so that cost
will not be too high even with a large variety of dishes and thus the reasonable price
can compete in the catering market.
The comfortable atmosphere of family restaurants is also appealing to customers.
The premises of family restaurants are well-lit, spacious, and standardized. Majority
of them operate from morning to evening, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Their
major target customers are family group and students. Some even open 24 hours a day.
This makes family restaurants welcomed by the general public.
Apart from food variety, food price and premise atmosphere, a stores
convenience in terms of proximity and parking availability has great effect on
customers choice of family restaurant for meals. To compete for customers, most of
the family restaurants are usually located in large buildings (often with substantial
parking lots) and places near to train stations, which are with strong flow of people.
In order to compete in the restaurants industry, some family restaurants even
provide additional services to their customers, for instance, free-wifi, online purchase
and food delivery.
There are lots of popular brands in the family restaurants industry in Japan. The
Skylark Group is the largest operator, operating the successful and widespread chains
like Jonathans Gusto, Bamiyan, Yumean and Aiya. Dennys, a popular brand from
US, are runned by Seven & I Food Systems Co. Zensho Co. launch Coco s, Big Boy
and Jolly Pasta while Royal Holdings Co. operates Royal Host and Saizeriya Co. has
Saizeriya. Among these brands, Saizeriya (serving Italian food), Bamiyan (serving
Chinsese food) , Gusto and Dennys (both serving a wide spread of items not tied to
one ethnicity) are the most popular in Japan according to a research conducted by
Japan Consumer Marketing Research Institute in 2010.
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Reference:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2410.html
http://hello-global.com/japan_market_research/japan_consumer_surveys20100423.ht
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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20110125i1.html
http://www.jmr-marketing.com/user/750/Food_Chain_Ranking/
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2410.htmlhttp://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2410.htmlhttp://hello-global.com/japan_market_research/japan_consumer_surveys20100423.htmlhttp://hello-global.com/japan_market_research/japan_consumer_surveys20100423.htmlhttp://hello-global.com/japan_market_research/japan_consumer_surveys20100423.htmlhttp://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20110125i1.htmlhttp://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20110125i1.htmlhttp://www.jmr-marketing.com/user/750/Food_Chain_Ranking/http://www.jmr-marketing.com/user/750/Food_Chain_Ranking/http://www.jmr-marketing.com/user/750/Food_Chain_Ranking/http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20110125i1.htmlhttp://hello-global.com/japan_market_research/japan_consumer_surveys20100423.htmlhttp://hello-global.com/japan_market_research/japan_consumer_surveys20100423.htmlhttp://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2410.html