Frantically Protecting My 24 Hours a Day All Year Round Shop #24

These were double-bladed extremely sharp knives for gutting fish. For a moment, I thought of how painful it would be to be stabbed by one. But my experience from the Japan Self-Defense Force served well to confidently counter their attacks. I got serious in a matter of moments, and told them in a silent manner. “It is not permitted to go out with a bare knife. Cover it with paper or a towel and leave.” It must have been something in my voice that persuaded them. The sushi chefs all covered their knives with towels and paper as they slowly walked out of the shop one after the other.

Although I had just successfully avoided a collision with knives, the shop was running continuously. “Then, I’ll just have to do it myself!” I started to wipe the tables, and soon, one of the chefs returned. He agreed that I have been right all along. This really made me happy. Finally, four of the chefs came back, however, the reality was that we were still short on labor. To keep the shop open for 24 hours a day all year round by all means, I ended up doing almost everything from washing the dishes to working the front while even my friends helped out. It wasn’t until a month had passed that I was finally able to secure the teams again. From there on the store was never closed due to cleaning, and the 24 hours a day all year round policy became the principle.

Now that I think about it, it was a great thing that I didn’t back down for even one step when the chefs brought out the knives. Ever since that “incident,” all of the employees have been able to work together towards the common goal of satisfying our customers. This had taught me, that no matter the difficulties faced, the business vision should absolutely always be followed through toward the set goal.

<<We had a manual for cleaning the shop>>

Going back to the matter of cleaning the shop, I had already indicated within the manual to thoroughly clean up every time any place was found dirty. Just look at Disneyland. They are completely spotless at all opening hours. Or the soldiers on the high seas. American aircraft carriers as well as the Japanese battleships are without a speck of garbage anywhere. The place can be clean since anything irregular is dealt with the moment it is noticed; so I made such action mandatory.
In either case, we are, after all, open for business at all hours of the day and, eventually, the shop has to be cleaned. That is why I incorporated swift cleaning methods into the manual. Not to clean all at once, but to split up the work. Take for example cleaning tables. Once customers finish their meal and leave the seating, after wiping the top of the table, instead of wiping all four table legs at once afterwards, only one leg is wiped, while another one is to be wiped after the next batch of customers, and so on. Since we’ll only be cleaning one table leg every time a batch of customers are settling their bill, there is no time loss.

If we were to clean the entrance door and window glass as well as the display case housing the sushi pieces, the cleaning work would be divided in 8 or 12 segments depending on the size, and these sections would be cleaned over a period of 8 or 12 times. If all would be cleaned at the same time, naturally, that would require a certain period of time to complete. The way the time slots for cleaning were broken up into several periods made it possible for customers to enjoy sushi inside a well-maintained, clean environment 24 hours a day.

<<SUSHIZANMAI Honten had taken off. At this time, I received a word of advice from a certain person>>

Although Go Egami is known as a critic and writer of economically-themed novels, at that time, he was managing Mizuho Bank’s Tsukiji Branch. Mr. Egami was looking for new business partners when he highly praised my new endeavor, and offered to fund my 24-hour 365-days open sushi shop if I was willing to turn it into a specialized business.

Due to the previous success of my Kiyozushi, I had already expanded to convenience stores and lunch box shops, as well as other types of sushi shops, all of which were located in Tsukiji and Fukagawa areas. This was how the challenging days with the one, my SUSHIZANMAI had begun.