Tokyo’s 7-Elevens and convenience stores

I love going to konbini whenever I'm in Japan but do yourself a favour and don't go to one for every meal. If you want a bento or some small dishes, there are lots of good and affordable ones at the grocery stores and department stores. They even discount them by quite a lot near closing time. Check the basement or top floors of the major train stations as well.

There's lots of good restaurants as well all over the place and even at the top floor of many Yodabashi (a giant electronics chain). Don't be afraid of places that don't have any English signage, you can usually request an English menu or see if they can just recommend you a good dish if you're adventurous.

If you're hopping onboard the Shinkansen (bullet train), grab yourself an ekiben at the station before you go, lots of delicious regional dishes to try out!

The first time I went to a 7/11 in Japan was on my first trip there with my wife (who is Japanese). We got in late and wanted a quick bite to eat... there was a 7/11 next to the hotel and she said "Let's go there!" I scoffed and said that I wanted edible food and she said, just come!

So we went and wow, what a difference from American 7/11's, they actually had fresh fruit and vegetables and the boxed sushi rivals what we can get at our nearby sushi restaurant back home. The rice balls are packaged so the Nori is encased in plastic and stays crispy until you open the package... and the Oden by the register looks unappetizing but is actually quite good. And all very reasonably priced.... and the 7/11's had no problem with our American credit card, unlike many small restaurants that only accept cash... fortunately, the 7/11 also has an ATM that works with most major networks. (some of these no-credit-card restaurants will accept a prepaid stored value card like Passmo or Suica)

We took the food back to the hotel and realized that we forgot to pick up drinks, fortunately, the hotel had a handy beer vending machine on every floor... mmmm...Suntory Premium Malt... even the canned highballs (whiskey+club soda) are good.

We had to cancel our trip to Japan in 2020 due to COVID, and looks like 2021 is out too, hopefully we can return in 2022.

Recently someone asked me what I liked most about living in Japan. I thought for a minute, and then answered “convenience stores”.

It was a bit of a joke answer - there are plenty of other things I could say, but I didn’t really want to get into the cultural differences between Japan and the United States or anything like that.

But there is some truth to it, too. Convenience stores in Japan are better than the US in just about every way. And I visit them so frequently (twice today, for example) that they really do have a pretty significant impact on my life.

Usually I go in with a specific purpose in mind and I can be in and out in under a minute. But other times I’ll go in with a more vague idea of what I want (“snacks for a road trip” or “booze”) and I’m always surprised and delighted to find something new and interesting on the shelf.

An example of something interesting that my son picked out today is this “colorful ice cream shop” snack [1]. It comes with various trays and powders that you mix with water to make “ice cream” (it’s not actually frozen, though) - complete with 3 flavors of ice cream, chocolate sauce, sprinkles, and 4 cones that you shape yourself and cook in the microwave. I was expecting my son to choose a lollipop or something, but this turned out to be surprisingly fun and tasty.

[1] https://www.kracie.co.jp/products/foods/10162929_21123.html

Interesting facts here.

7-Elevens in Japan are owned by a company called Seven & I Holdings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_%26_I_Holdings

The USA 7-Eleven chain is a subsidiary of Seven & I Holdings!

This is because in the early 1990's, the American 7-Eleven was facing bankruptcy. The Japanese one wasn't, and acquired them to bail them out.

So if you walk into a 7-Eleven in the USA, you are in a Japanese 7-Eleven, albeit one that continues to be run in the American style. Just like a Panasonic microwave oven in North America looks nothing like a Japanese microwave oven.

Nice, but Taiwan has the best 7-11's. Take a look:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/%E6%9A%97%E9%BB%91%E5%B0%8...

Yes. It's the same throughout East Asia excepting China.

I lived in Taiwan for several years and 7-11, Family Mart, et al. pretty much are the one-stop-shop that the internet tries to be here in America. But it does it far better.

* You can pay all your bills at them

* You can get train and plane tickets at them

* You can receive packages at them

* You can eat decent food at them 24x7

* You can get alcohol 24x7 (if you live on the West Coast USA this isn't so obvious - many states highly restrict alcohol sales hours and selection)

* You can get any of these usually only a block or three walking distance from anywhere you might live in any city or town - they are ubiquitous and truly convenient

If you want to save yourself a couple minutes just look up a picture of 711 in Japan.

“You can find dinner there and it will be a top-notch dinner.”

Yea, I don't know about that. You can find much higher quality, cheaper bento at other stores, although the onigiri is nice in a pinch.

A part of me thinks the article title should have been "When in Japan, forget..." (I realise it's in the context of the Olympics).

Konbinis are great and I miss them from when I lived there. The food is... convenient... and extremely tasty but I wouldn't like to live day-to-day off it.

Better to go to one of the many, many restaurants and ramen joints that are throughout the whole of Japan if you feel like a bite to eat whilst out and about.

Especially local eateries in small towns - they can be hidden gems. We once went to a local cafe and I ordered a rice and chicken katsu curry dish which when it arrived could have fed three people the serving was that huge. It was also delicious. ;)

I like to joke that if you place correctly angled mirrors in 7-11s in Thailand (or just seven as they call it), a single beam of light shined at the first one should be able to traverse the whole country. I am only half joking though - they really have that many.

Part of what makes Konbini so integrated into Japanese life is their official capacity. You can send packages, pay your utility bills and print city documents

Good puff piece, but here’s a great counter on a 7-Eleven franchisee in Japan taking a day off to care for his wife with cancer, so to punish him they built a corporate owned 7-Eleven in his parking lot.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/business/japan-7-eleven.h...

“ Inside the war between a very powerful company and a very stubborn franchisee, complete with threats, spies and videotape.”

It’s not really specific to Tokyo or even Japan but true for most major Asian cities that 7-11 convenience stores actually have decent food (hot, savoury, decent tasting).

Taking a step back the reason in my opinion is that the standards for hot, good tasting foods is in general higher in Asian cultures compared to many other western countries. Munching on a cold sandwich just isn’t traditionally seen as a proper meal in Asia.

I love 711 in the US. They tend to be clean compared to other stores. They post the prices. Stores that don't have prices I walk right out.

America must have terrible food in 7-11 if they can reach this level of hyperbole, and the sandwiches are awful, like most western food in Japan they’re not really western food at all, just something in the shape of the original but made to be as soft as Japanese rice. The coffee is good though, and very cheap!

the fact that an american reporter think konbini meals are "top notch" tells as much about the quality of food in japan as about the quality of food in the US

I've been to Tokyo 7-Elevens, but the 7-Elevens in China are just as good if not better. There's so much fresh food and healthy snacks. When I was in Beijing, we usually got breakfast from the 7-Eleven across from the hotel each morning.

Taiwan's 7-11s go much further than selling great snacks and drinks. You can buy high-speed train tickets, drop off packages, and file certain types of official paperwork. Once I bought professional baseball tickets there.

Conbini are great.

I'm addicted to the relatively new coffee machines. You get a made-to-order coffee for the price of a vending machine coffee. And now that Suntory owns Jim Beam, you can buy bourbon in every conbini to fortify your coffee.

Family Mart has the best fried chicken ("famichiki").

We once used google translate to tell us the different flavors of rice balls and were shocked when one came up as "spicy child". Japanese friends explained that this was actually mentaiko or spicy fish eggs.

Finally, I resisted the oden by the cash register for years but finally ate it when we were stuck at a bus stop with a long line. Delicious.

Pretty amazing that someone can rave so much about konbinis and not mention that next to their fridge of cold drinks they will inevitably have an equally large or larger fridge of cheap booze, sold at all hours.

Asian 711 is so good they sing about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOF9E2WirfE

Related, check out small asian markets in the US. There are at least 2 relatively big ones near where I am now.

They have some high-quality food, cheap food, and food you won’t find anywhere else. In particular I go for tofu skins (sheets which are a lot like tofu but much firmer). They don’t have things in traditional convenience stores, really only asian foods. But you won’t find these foods at supermarkets.

So civilised. They clean the toilets 10 times a day.

In Quebec we have "Couche-Tard" and it's just overpriced 'depanneur' oftentimes even with worse selection. In general ready to eat dishes is not a thing for some reason. Canada is way behind even compared with UK where ready to eat dishes from "Tesco Express". I still don't know why is the situation like that. Regulations?

And no mention that 7-11 bought out the USA company and is now japanese

Interesting paid sponsership.

Korean convenience stores were pretty good. I wouldn't say life changing but the snack selection is good.

コンビニが好き

Japanese convenience stores have been a mined-out topic for _years_. Where is the coverage of the rest of Asia? Taiwanese convenience stores are actually more impressive imo, with a dizzying array of additional services. In China, the convenience store industry was already booming in recent years, with a diverse mix of foreign and domestic brands, and it has been growing even faster thanks to covid. Which sounds like an actually newsworthy topic, rather than the hundredth article about Japan. I have absolutely nothing against Japan but it is disappointing how it's the only East Asian country whose culture Americans care to look at.