It’s been an eventful few days for Sukiya. On March 22, Japan’s largest beef bowl chain restaurant made a public apology after admitting that one of its stores in Tottori served a customer miso soup with a rat in it in January. Then on Friday, a customer reportedly found a portion of a cockroach in a take-out dish ordered from an outlet near JR Akishima Station in Western Tokyo. The following day, the fast-food chain announced that it is temporarily closing almost all of its outlets in Japan.
Sukiya Apologizes After Cockroach Found in Dish
From 9 a.m. on Monday, March 31, to 9 a.m. on Friday, April 4, the vast majority of Sukiya’s approximately 2,000 nationwide stores will be closed in order “to prevent external intrusion and internal infestation of pests and vermin.” According to the company’s statement, certain outlets in shopping malls will be excluded from the closure. Sukiya apologized for the “distress and inconvenience caused to the customer who reported the incident” last Friday. It also said sorry to all its “customers who regularly use the store.”
Rat Discovered in Sukiya’s Miso Soup
The discovery of the cockroach in the Sukiya dish came just over two months after a customer posted a picture of a bowl of miso soup with a rat in it from the company’s Tottori Minamiyoshikata outlet. Some people initially doubted the image, believing it had been manipulated. However, last week, Sukiya confirmed that it was genuine. The store in question was closed for two days. It resumed operations after the local public health center examined the restaurant.
In a statement on March 22, the company said that measures were being taken to prevent insects and vermin from entering from outside. However, following the cockroach incident, Sukiya took the more drastic measure of temporarily closing most of its stores.
