United we thrive: entrepreneurs explain how they built Japanese restaurant chain

United we thrive: entrepreneurs explain how they built Japanese restaurant chain

2022-08-02

Today we take a peek into the world of the entrepreneur. Three young foodies decided to band together to open a Japanese restaurant chain seven years ago. Although the early days were full of trouble, they managed to thrive and carve out a niche in the competitive industry. Let’s take a look at how they did it.

A nine-kilo salmon is brought over from the fishing harbor first thing in the morning. The chef skins it nimbly, dividing the meat and then removing the bones with tweezers. Then he cuts out the finest, fattiest cuts – just 40% of the fish.

Kuo Chen-nan
Japanese restaurant head chef
When a fish comes in, another store might sell the whole thing. We can only sell about half of it. We have waste of about 50%. Salmon and swordfish have a lot of gristle, which we cut straight off.

Absolutely no gristle is the no. 1 rule of sashimi. A fastidious commitment to the best ingredients is the secret of success for this Japanese restaurant.

Regular customer
The fish is so fresh here, really. I just saw the owner killing it himself. I often invite friends to come and eat with me.

Tang Kuo-lin
Japanese restaurant CEO
The most extreme we had, was a regular customer who came five times a week. When we started the business, we wanted to attract customers with low prices. But we use the same quality of ingredients as high-end Japanese restaurants.

Japanese cuisine requires fresh ingredients and high quality to shine. At this restaurant, the prices are much less than the market norm. They offer luxury set meals for bargain prices by joining forces with peers in the same business.

Tang Kuo-lin
Japanese restaurant CEO
Because I know lots of people in the business. After all, we all started off as small restaurants. So we buy our ingredients together, which allows us to control the costs. In my view, although things are hard for our generation of young people, if we are united enough, we will have a certain advantage in the market.

In the first year of the restaurant, these three young entrepreneurs worked together, managing everything themselves. When the store shut, they head to the fish market at the crack of dawn to choose the best catch. Only when everything is all in hand did they head home for a bit of downtime. They worked like that for a whole year to get the business off the ground and running.

Tang Kuo-lin
Japanese restaurant CEO
You really have to be psychologically prepared to start a business. That is, you might go through a few tough years that the average person wouldn’t be willing to go through. I remember when we had just started, the three of us probably only slept about four or five hours a night.

Now after seven years in business, the trio has three stores open and thriving, and a monthly turnover of more than a million NT. By working together, they’ve opened up possibilities that none could have created alone.