Eating-out in West Europe

Japanese people traveling around West European countries will often be surprised by price of meal at restaurants. While in our homeland, beef bowl(gyudon) and soba stand noodles (tachigui-soba) cost only 400yen or so, we need pay almost 20Euro even without drink for lunch.

Why such discrepancy? To my view there are 4 reasons behind.

Firstly, number of restaurants are strictly controlled by the authority. If someone wishes to start, for instance new Japanese Ramen noodle restaurant in a downtown Brussels or Berlin, the only way, basically, is to “buy” a right for operating restaurants, and sometimes the amount is as massive as several million Euro.

Secondly, big difference in manpower expense. The minimum wage in Germany is 12 Euro/h. In addition, it is the employer’s obligation to pay social welfare cost even for part-time worker.

Thirdly, opening days and hours are also tightly regulated, and all the employee, including those on part-time, is entitled to take paid-holidays. It automatically means the owner should charge all these costs on the price of meal.

Last but not the least, VAT(≒Our Consumption Tax ) is around 20% in most of West European countries.

Any Japanese business person who is aspired to start restaurant business in West Europe may well know all these facts.

So-called buyers in Japanese company who are engaged in importing foodstuffs should also need to bear in mind that you are competing with buyers from countries where lunch is served at 15-20 Euro, not 400yen.

A ”chique” bistro in 16e Paris