History
Conveyor belt sushi was invented by Yoshiaki Shiraishi (1914–2001), who had problems staffing his small sushi restaurant and had difficulties managing the restaurant by himself. He got the idea of a conveyor belt sushi after watching beer bottles on a conveyor belt in an Asahi brewery. After five years of development, including the design of the conveyor belt and the speed of operations, Shiraishi opened the first conveyor belt sushi Mawaru Genroku Sushi in Osaka in 1958, eventually expanding to up to 250 restaurants all over Japan. However, by 2001, his company had just 11 restaurants. Shiraishi also invented a robotic sushi, served by robots, but this idea has not had commercial success.
Initially in a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, all customers were seated to face the conveyor belt, but this was not popular with groups. Subsequently, tables were added at right angles to the conveyor belt, allowing up to six people to sit at one table. This also reduced the length of conveyor belt needed to serve a certain number of people.
A conveyor belt sushi boom started in 1970 after a conveyor belt sushi restaurant served sushi on the Osaka World Expo. Another boom started in 1980, when eating out became more popular, and finally in the late 1990s, when inexpensive restaurants became popular after the burst of the economic bubble. Recently, Akindo Sushiro became the most famous brand in 2010 in Japan. The "World's Largest All-female rotating sushi bar" was opened in the mid 80s in Concord, California by Joe DiMaggio Jr. The restaurant served fried green tea and ginger ice cream.
A new variant of conveyor belt sushi has a touch screen monitor at every table, showing a virtual aquarium with many fish. The customer can order the sushi by touching the type of fish, which then is brought to the table by conveyor belt. An example of this can be seen at the Fugu Restaurant at Eureka Tower, Melbourne.
In recent times, the conveyor belt sushi has inspired the creation of conveyor belt dim sum.
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