Sinister acts of “sushi terrorism” have forced four of Japan’s “big five” sushi restaurants to abandon self-service after footage showed customers rubbing their saliva on tableware.
Conveyor belt sushi has long been a favorite among diners, but there are now fears it is on its way out due to the horrible behavior of some customers.
Leading Japanese restaurants that use the kaiten – or rotary – serving system are being forced to switch to more traditional methods of serving their raw delicacies due to trends being filmed and posted on social media.
Today, only one of the five largest conveyor belt sushi chain operators in Japan, Kura Sushi, remains committed to keeping it available to its customers.
The “sushi-terrorism” trend in Japan sees customers doing gross things in restaurants, like licking soy sauce bottles or eating ginger straight from a communal pot.
A teenager was filmed licking a bottle of soy sauce in Akindo Sushiro, Japan, in an act known as “sushi terrorism”.
Sushiro then got rid of his conveyor belts and opted for large touch screens to display his dishes.
Yoshinoya
In April, footage showed a man, locally named Ryu Shimazu, dining in Yoshinoya, Osaka, and using a pair of chopsticks to spoon large quantities of grated red ginger from a shared black container into his mouth.
According to local reports, he was arrested for conspiring to interfere with the popular restaurant’s business.
Yoshinoya was later forced to stop offering the belt service feature after Shimazu “caused anxiety and discomfort among other customers and raised doubts about safety and security in the belt industry.” restoration”.
But the appalling acts of “food terrorism” did not stop there.
Akindo Sushiro
Other footage also showed a teenager at Japanese restaurant Akindo Sushiro touching pieces of sushi on a conveyor belt with freshly licked fingers and licking cups before leaving them in a pile to be used by other customers.
The channel’s owner said the images led to a sharp drop in shares after they went viral and racked up nearly 40 million views in June.
Restaurant Sushiro was seen covering his finger in saliva before touching plates of food, an act which left viewers – and the restaurant – in shock.
According to The Asahi Shimbun, Sushiro then got rid of the belts and introduced a large touch screen to virtually display dishes instead of parading plates of food in front of diners.
Dubbed Digital SushiroVision, or Digiro, a monitor placed on each table and counter displays animated images of sushi dishes circulating on the conveyor belt that can be ordered.
“Digital technology has helped us create a new way to enjoy conveyor belt sushi,” said Kohei Nii, president of Akindo Sushiro Co, the chain’s operator.
“Digiro offers a more joyful and entertaining dining experience. »
The gruesome clips not only caused much embarrassment to popular restaurants, but also added expenses to the targeted restaurants who were forced to apologize to their disgusted customers.
Choshimaru
Fearing that the wave of “sushi terrorism” is growing in Japan with images of sickening acts regularly appearing on social media, Choshimaru, a chain that operates restaurants in and around Tokyo, revealed the year last that it would take drastic measures to combat this problem. after a diner puts out a cigarette in a jar of pickled ginger.
The chain’s staff first began bringing condiments and utensils to the table each time a new group of diners took their seats.
But the restaurant then went further and revealed that conveyor belts in its 63 restaurants would be turned off – and more staff would be brought in to hand deliver orders.
Although this move removed the popular and fun element of ordering sushi, the company reasoned that the lack of plates passing through the restaurant on a conveyor belt would make it nearly impossible for pranksters to tamper with other customers’ orders .
And several other restaurants have followed suit.
Kura Sushi categorically wants to keep its conveyor belt system
At Kura Sushi, the plates are equipped with protective screens, while the conveyor belts are equipped with alarms and CCTV cameras.
Kura Sushi has implemented a series of costly security measures to combat these revolting acts.
Hama Sushi
Hama Sushi abolished the treadmill at the start of the pandemic, as the trend began to become popular in Japan, according to Japan today.
Instead, they now rely solely on the express belts used by most major chains in which the customer orders from a touch screen placed at their seat and the desired dish zooms directly to their table.
Tablets are also installed on the tables, reducing the need for customers to have any physical contact with the dishes before or after ordering.
Sushi Sushi
Yet Kura Sushi is taking a stand against “sushi terrorists” and keeping conveyors alive through the use of technology.
The restaurant was forced to take special precautions after a customer was caught eating sushi off a moving belt and drinking directly from a communal soy sauce bottle.
The new measures included the installation of antibacterial covers to protect fish from stray saliva droplets and AI camera systems to identify suspicious customer behavior.
They also added electronic chips to the boxes containing the sushi plates.
In addition to monitoring how long they have been sitting on the belt, they will be able to detect if the case has been tampered with so customers can avoid sushi that may have been compromised.
“Conveyor belt sushi is something we are proud of as an integral part of Japanese culture. We want to ensure that our customers can eat sushi delivered on board safely and comfortably,” a company official said last year.
“Our company has received a large number of customers who tell us that they no longer trust or want to go to conveyor belt sushi restaurants,” Hiroyuki Okamoto, public relations manager of Kura Sushi, told reporters , according to the Mainichi Shimbun.
“This is a crisis not only for our stores, but for the entire conveyor belt sushi industry,” Okamoto said, adding that using AI would reassure diners even if it meant that they were effectively placed under surveillance.
But most restaurants seem to have had enough of the stomach-churning “sushi terrorism” and are starting to do away with conveyor belts altogether.