From the people who brought you Krispy Kreme Japan (which opens today) comes another wonderful fast food innovation: Burger King will be coming back to Japan! Unfortunately, they’re aiming to be a Mos Burger-style “high class” fast food chain and are thus charging a “whopping” 700 yen for a value meal.
Still, BK in Japan will help alleviate some homesickness as it does here in Thailand. What could be next, a cheap, delicious bagel outlet? One can only hope.
Given my elated gratitude at such news, I am more than happy to reprint the company’s press release on the matter, which ran as a story in Friday’s Nikkei:
Burger King To Return To Japan With Help From Lotte, Revamp
TOKYO (Nikkei)–Lotte Co. and turnaround firm Revamp Corp. have entered a franchise agreement with Burger King Corp. of the U.S. and will start opening stores of the hamburger chain in Japan next summer, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun learned Thursday.
Lotte and Revamp have set up a company for the operations, with Lotte kicking in the bulk of the funds.
The partners hope to have eight directly run stores by March 2008. They plan to expand the chain to 50 locations, mainly in the Tokyo area, by March 2010 and to 100 by 2012.
This marks a comeback for Burger King, which entered the Japanese market in the 1990s in cooperation with the Seibu Railway Co. group and Japan Tobacco Inc. but withdrew in 2001 in the face of poor results.
Burger King will promote its burgers in Japan by stressing the fact that it flame-broils its patties rather than heating them on a grill.
A set of a burger and a drink is expected to cost around 700 yen — 30-40% more than is charged by the Lotteria chain, which is run by Lotte. McDonald’s Co. (Japan) charges around 500 yen for a similar meal, while Mos Food Services Inc. and Freshness charge about 700-800 yen.
Lotte plans to turn its Lotteria chain, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts stores, which will begin opening in Japan this month, and Burger King restaurants into three main pillars of its restaurant operations.
The Junoesque bagels they sell in the basement of the Shinjuku Takashimaya are actually worth eating, I’ve found. Here’s a review of the things on the “Tokyo Bagel Life” (!) website.
I certainly haven’t seen any bagels in Japan that can come close to rivaling the NY Bagels Cafe in Taipei, much less a real New York bagel. Shit, I haven’t even had a Japanese bagel that approaches the quality of one from Dunkin Donuts, which incidentally can be bought in Korea.
People I know tell me that BK only failed in Tokyo because it had horrible locations. Hopefully Lotte will know better.
Burger King failed in Japan because of bad service and the fact that they never cooked the burgers the same way as everywhere elce. Looking at how Revamp set up Krispe Kreme (just ike in America and there are still one hour lines out the door) I think they ave a good chance with BK…….although I don’t think I can eat a quad whopper…
yo sweet bk is in town. hellllllllllllllllll ya. whats up jamie ahhah. fuck ya nathans, bk, krispy kreme, japan is improvin. jamie did you go to krispy kreme yet. fuckign amazing. we were in a 30 minute line and for some reason they opened the gate adn let me peter adam dave anders right in gave us a free whole donut and we were ready to order. go!