The vending machine at Hiroshi Nishitani’s ramen restaurant in Tokyo has been reliable for a decade. Customers give him money and he prints their orders while he prepares fresh noodles in the kitchen. The food is served within minutes once the customer hands the order to the couple of cooks at the counter.
But the machine’s days are numbered. Japan is set to introduce a new set of banknotes this summer, something it does about every 20 years to thwart counterfeiters. The machine, which is now too old to accept recent coin designs, does not accept the new bills, Nishitani said.
“There’s nothing wrong with the vending machine,” he said, expressing frustration over the need to purchase an expensive new unit compatible with the new bills.
Across Japan, restaurants, cafes, public toilets and other businesses face a similar prospect. The country has 4.1 million vending machines, according to Nikkei Compass, a database for industry reports. Many of them will become obsolete once the new 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 yen banknotes with hologram technology are launched in July.
In Japan, where the workforce is shrinking, the machines reduce the need for cashiers and waiters. Among those most reliant on machines are ramen shops, which serve one of the favorite and most affordable foods of the Japanese working class.
Ramen, wheat noodles in a rich-flavored broth, became an integral part of Japanese cuisine after becoming popular in the 1980s, when the country’s economy was taking off. Restaurants expanded as people clamored for quick, filling food and chefs experimented with new ingredients. Many chefs now dedicate their lives to perfecting the dish. Nishitani, 42, started making ramen at 17.
Noodles are a staple among construction and factory workers, salarymen, and students looking for affordable meals. Many ramen shops are clustered around train stations and cater to travelers.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, students from a nearby university showed up for a late lunch at Mr. Nishitani’s nine-seat shop, Goumen Maruko.
He and his three employees sell about 100 dishes a day. Each is priced under 1,000 yen, or approximately $6.50. The most popular dish is a $5 Jiro-style dish: noodles with a mound of vegetables and chunks of pork fat soaked in a steaming pork and chicken broth. The most expensive meals, which come in larger portions, cost around $6.20.
To defray the cost of modernizing or replacing vending machines, some municipalities offer subsidies, but most of the cost will fall on store owners. A new machine can cost two million yen, or about $13,000, said Masahiro Kawamura, sales manager at Elcom, a Tokyo company that sells ticket machines.
Yoshihiro Serizawa, who runs a soba shop in Tokyo, said he spent about $19,000 on his new machine, which also accepts cashless payments, “a huge financial burden.” The amount is equivalent to more than 6,000 orders of his most popular dish: soba with mixed vegetable and seafood tempura, which costs just over $3.
“You have to constantly think about how to get the money back,” Serizawa said.
The new banknotes are increasing pressures on Japanese small businesses. Recently, inflation has accelerated after remaining low for years and the country fell into a recession.
Rising flour and electricity prices have increased expenses for ramen shops in particular. Analysts at Tokyo Shoko Research said 45 ramen restaurants nationwide filed for bankruptcy last year, the highest number since 2009. As customers are not used to rising prices, companies have struggled to increase theirs.
Among ramen chefs, the widely accepted limit for a bowl of ramen is known as the “1,000 yen wall.”
“I really don’t want to raise the price any more,” Nishitani said.
When Japan launched its last set of banknotes in 2004, modifying vending machines and issuing 10 billion new banknotes cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Demand was so high that a manufacturer near Osaka called Glory tripled its net income, according to an annual report.
The transition to new machines could take years. By summer 2023, only about 30 percent of beverage vending machines could accept the 500 yen coins introduced in 2021, according to Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun.
Mr. Nishitani’s vending machine doesn’t work with those coins either. His Tokyo ward is subsidizing up to $1,900 for new machines, a city official said. Nishitani laughed at the thought that was almost enough.
With two months left before the new notes would be issued, he still had not placed an order for a new machine. He recently started accepting payments through a credit card reader for the first time. But that has led to more administrative expenses and more work.
“I can’t get used to it at all,” he said.