Pizza by the slice coming back to Japan!

Great news: Sbarro will be opening in Tokyo (presumably) in the near future! Sbarro doesn’t exactly have the best reputation in the US, it is still entirely passable pizza-by-the-slice. Welcome back!

Though they did not announce exactly when the first store would open, their plans are to open 18 shops in rapid succession in their first year of business. That’s a thankful departure from the Cold Stone Creamery and Krispy Kreme Donuts strategies of pumping up excessive demand for a tiny amount of shops in an effort to generate buzz. So rather than the painfully annoying KK lines in Shinjuku and Yurakucho, here is hoping the Sbarro chains will be as accessible as they are back home.

clipped from www.nni.nikkei.co.jp
U.S. Pizza Chain Sbarro To Re-Enter Japan

TOKYO (Nikkei)–Sbarro Inc., a major U.S. pizza chain operator, will take another shot at the Japanese market, opening its first outlet as early as April in the Tokyo area, The Nikkei learned Friday.

Sbarro and consulting firm JCI Inc. are expected to set up a 50-50 venture capitalized at 10 million yen by the end of February. They plan to open 18 directly run restaurants by the end of next year and a total of 125 shops, including franchise outlets, in five years.

Founded in 1956 in New York, Sbarro has over 1,000 restaurants in 43 countries. It entered Japan under a franchise system in 1997 but pulled out in 2001.

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12 thoughts on “Pizza by the slice coming back to Japan!”

  1. In New York, Sbarros is just about the worst slice of pizza you can possibly buy. On the other hand, I know of exactly one place that sells American style pizza slices in Japan: Slices in Namba, Osaka. (Around the corner from the Korean consulate.) Slices is pretty good, but there’s only one of it.

  2. I see that Slices has prices that will take a slice out of your wallet (500 yen a slice, 2000 yen for a medium pizza).

    Will Sbarro charge $3 a slice like they do in the States?

  3. 500 yen for a good slice of pizza isn’t at all unreasonable for Japan, considering. Check out the prices for the shitty pizza you get from Dominos or Pizza Hut. You can bet that Sbarro will charge at least as much in Japan as they do in the US. and $3 is standard price in NYC these days for a slice.

  4. Despite my hate for Sbarro, I’d still be there right now if one opened in Kyoto. You just won’t ever catch me wasting my pizza money there in New York.

  5. I get slice pizza for 160 yen a slice at a good discount supermarket I know. That’s perfectly good. But I would prefer to see Spizzico as it at least is an Italian chain.

  6. Actually, Cold Stone planned to open up 150 stores by 2009 when they launched…. you’ll notice there’s been very, very little progress on that front.

    The reason for the high-profiled launch? They saw how operations like Sbarro failed.

  7. I feel like Sbarro should have a shot, because there’s no other chain that sells anything too similar in Japan. Sure, there’s delivery pizza and Italian restaurants that sell pizza, but basically no place that does as fast food. And hopefully they’ll do pizzeria sandwiches too… Man I want a meatball sub.

  8. I buy Krispy Kremes at Yurakucho every once in a while and have never found the line a chore. The secret is to stand in line long enough to eat your free donut and then jump up to the special, short line they open every 5 minutes or so for people buying boxes rather than picking out individual donuts.

  9. Personally, I don’t care if they go bankrupt in 6 months. I just want sliced pizza in Japan one time. Is that too much to ask?

  10. Well, it’s not all that good- but it’s from Brooklyn! How could I not be happy about it coming to Japan?

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