I did whatever I could to offer great tasting sushi to my customers every day, 24 hours a day. Take for example the freshness of a slice of sushi. In the morning I could source from Tsukiji Market. In the afternoon I could get that day’s catch from other Japanese ports through Haneda Airport. And, in the evening, I could get that day’s catch from all over the world through Narita Airport. We received deliveries 6 times a day, dividing the day into 4-hour periods. Every time a delivery was made, it was stored with a mark: “First Mountain,” “Second Mountain,” “Third Mountain,” … The sushi chefs were required to manage their time extensively, and have all the sushi ingredients replaced every 4 hours. Such practice was put into place in order to offer fresh seafood to the customers any time they came to the store.

Conventional sushi shops only sourced once at the morning market, then tried to use it up by the end of the day. Since we had other distribution channels to source directly from the producers, we were able to prioritize freshness at all times. Seafood that may have sat too long and has lost the original freshness was not discarded. We prepared grilled fish menu, then stewed fish, and finally tsukudani, fish boiled in sweet soy sauce. Two to three varieties of domestic rice were selected every year and used as sushi rice when blended together. The rice was used up within two hours after it was cooked. The flavor of pickled ginger was carefully developed through complete in-house organic production without pesticides during cultivation.

<<Raising the Bar in Terms of Employee Working Conditions>>

Since we are a business based on offering service to customers, I had to make sure that all of my employees, including sushi chefs, were all happy with the work here. This was where my experience from the Japan Self-Defense Force came in. I divided shifts into 3 time slots of 8 hours each, with 4 crew members in each of the 3 shifts, and 1 crew taking a break. This was a 24 hours a day all year round shift structure used in the Self-Defense Forces during an emergency. This way the employees could focus when they were working and also have sufficient time for rest. However, I received a request from the sushi chefs regarding this idea. They have pointed out that 8 hours was too short, and that most of them would go to a gambling parlor after. Rather than that, they wanted to work longer. So in order to meet their idea, I decided to allow them 2 hours of overtime.

<<But not everything went smoothly. Two months and a half after opening, I went to the shop and it was closed. What I found was that the workers had closed the shop for 30 minutes for cleaning. I immediately summoned everyone and had a strict talk about this>>

I had to emphasize again that we operated a sushi shop that was open 24 hours a day all year round, and if we closed the shop for even 30 minutes, that would be going against what we stood for. I pressed again the sushi chefs and the employees that gathered about why the shop was closed. But the chefs stayed determined that it is necessary to maintain cleanliness, which can only be done by cleaning when the shop is closed. They were telling me all of this knowing that they were making the customers wait. To be clear, I had already made a manual on how to clean the shop without having to temporarily close it down. That has been completely ignored. I had pressed them even harder using stern words.

Obviously, the chefs did not take a liking to this, probably feeling that their way of working was outright rejected. They objected strongly by saying that the actual management of the shop was done differently from what I thought. And that my manual was not a realistic way to operate this shop. I had no intention of backing down. We took turns strongly voicing our opinions back and forth. In the chaos, one of the chefs went to the kitchen and returned with a knife in his hand. Seeing this, the other chefs too went to the back and got their knives. Things escalated quickly from bad to worse, and almost to the breaking point.