1st Outlet of Yoshinoya, in Tsukiji Market, to Close After 59 Yrs

September 20, 2018

Tokyo- The first Yoshinoya "gyudon" beef-on-rice bowl restaurant, located within Tokyo's Tsukiji wholesale market, will close on Oct. 6, ending a 59-year history due to the relocation of the market.

The Tsukiji outlet is known for keeping serving gyudon by using domestic beef between 2004 and 2006, when the dish disappeared from other outlets of the Yoshinoya Co. chain across Japan as imports of U.S. beef were banned due to an outbreak of mad cow disease.

Yoshinoya, the main arm of Yoshinoya Holdings Co., started out in 1899 as a privately run eatery in a fish market in the Nihonbashi district of the capital. It moved to Tsukiji, in then Kyobashi Ward and now Chuo Ward, in 1926 in line with the relocation of the fish market following the Great Kanto Earthquake. But it burned down in the Great Tokyo Air Raids in 1945 during World War II.

Yoshinoya resumed its restaurant operation in the Tsukiji market in 1947 and relocated it to the current place tens of meters away within the market in 1959, after Yoshinoya's incorporation the previous year.

Yoshinoya Holdings regards the relocated Tsukiji outlet as the first Yoshinoya gyudon shop.

According to the holding company, a bowl of gyudon in the 1950s was priced at 120 yen, as expensive as a dish of "unaju" boxed meal of rice topped with filets of grilled eel, a luxury Japanese delicacy.

Despite its high price, however, quick and testy gyudon gained popularity among busy market workers with a discerning palate. The Tsukiji shop is said to have been always crowded, according to a company official.

In a bid to serve as many customers as possible while having only 15 seats, the outlet streamlined the cooking process and limited ingredients to beef, onions and rice.

The Tsukiji method established a basis for the Yoshinoya chain.

Yoshinoya Holdings will open an outlet at the newly built Toyosu wholesale market in Koto Ward, which will start operation on Oct. 22 to take over functions from the Tsukiji market.

"We want to keep providing delicious gyudon bowls to people at the market," Yoshinoya Holdings' public relations officer said. Jiji Press