Food is definitely one of the more ubiquitous conversation topics in Japan. Over here, people are in love with food, and they’re always looking for new and different flavors to try. Tokyo is a veritable Smörgåsbord of multi-cultural cuisine, with almost any kind of food you can imagine available. I could probably go on for hours detailing all the new and wonderful ingestible sensations I’ve been exposed to over here. But I won’t. Today’s topic is fast food.
McDonald’s, despite its phonetically difficult name (makudonarudo), has enjoyed almost as much success here in Japan as it has in America. Any food company that does business here in Japan must come to terms with the fact that every once in a while it’s going to have to release exciting new flavors of its existing products, just to satisfy the market. McDonald’s knows this, which is why its new “Big America” campaign has been so successful. In this campaign, every few weeks a new burger is released based on a different region of the United States. So far they’ve done Texas, New York, and Hawaii. This is quite a departure from the modus operandi of McDonald’s in America, as the burgers are actually REALLY GOOD.
I can only speak for the New York and Hawaiian varieties, though. When I tried to buy a Texas burger, I was very politely informed that they were out. A fast food chain restaurant running out of a food product is not something I have really encountered before, outside of Japan. Happy meal toys, sure, but food? Never. Now, you’re probably thinking that this was just bad luck or an isolated incident. Or that I’m lying. Well none of those things would be true. And shame on you. This has, in fact, happened to me before.
Another chain that has enjoyed a fair bit of success here is KFC. Known simply as Kentucky, the chain has done a fantastic job of marketing itself as the go-to place for a traditional Christmas dinner, among other things. The thing that really stands out to me about KFC in Japan, though, is the day that it ran out of chicken. Yes, KFC ran out of C. It all happened one fateful Thanksgiving day, my first year in Japan, when my wife and I decided to hit up KFC for a “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner. Here’s how it all went down:
My Wife: What do you want to get?
Me: Let’s get the Rotisserie Chicken.
My Wife: OK (…Something in Japanese…)
Clerk: (…Something in very polite Japanese…)
My Wife: He says they’re out.
Me: Oh. Well, then let’s just get a 7 piece bucket or something.
My Wife: OK (…disappointed Japanese…)
Clerk: (…VERY polite Japanese…)
My Wife: He says they’re out of chicken.
Me: Geez. Well I guess we could get the.. wait. They’re out of WHAT?
My Wife: Chicken.
Me: It’s KFC, how could they be out of chicken??
My Wife: I don’t know.
Me: Why are they even still open, then?
My Wife: I really don’t know.
Me: Can you ask?
My Wife: I’d rather not.
Me: …
Me: Does that mean you won’t?
My Wife: Yes.
And so to this day it remains a mystery. How does a store just run out of its main product? It’s like Babies R Us running out of babies, or like Kinko’s running out of bad attitude. At least now my Japanese is good enough that I’ll be able to ask next time. I probably won’t understand the answer, but that’s not really the important part.
