From Customer Visits to Customer Moments: How Successful Restaurants Create Multiple Revenue Channels
Future growth for noodle restaurants comes from the number of usage occasions
When looking at successful restaurant businesses around the world, one common characteristic becomes apparent. The more successful the business, the less it depends on a single sales channel.
- Dine-in
- Takeout
- Delivery
- Advance ordering
- App ordering
- Corporate demand
- Household demand
- Membership programs
In this way, they have multiple points of entry for revenue.
For noodle restaurant management going forward, the era of thinking about sales only in terms of customer visits is over.
The key question is how and in what situations customers use your products.
Whether you can increase the number of usage occasions will be a major factor in future growth.
There is no single model of success
Take Marugame Udon, for example. As a Japanese Udon brand, Marugame Udon has expanded the value of the in-store experience through in-store noodle making, freshness, and cooking performed in front of customers.
It is not a business model with an exceptionally high digital-ordering ratio or takeout ratio. Instead, customers watch noodles being made, boiled, and served alongside freshly fried tempura.
That experience itself is a strong competitive advantage.
On the other hand, brands such as Chipotle, Domino’s, Starbucks, Sweetgreen, and Luckin Coffee have grown through digital ordering, mobile ordering, takeout, delivery, and membership programs.
In other words, the lesson from successful restaurants around the world is not simply to imitate another company.
Global success stories: country of origin, number of stores, and AUV
When looking at restaurant brands around the world, each business category has its own growth model.
| BRAND | Marugame Udon | Chipotle | Domino’s Pizza | Starbucks | Sweetgreen | Luckin Coffe | Haidilao | Wagamama |
| COUNTRY | Japan | US | US | US | US | Cjoma | China | UK |
| OUTLETS | ~892 (Japan) / 206 (abroad) | ~4056 | ~22142 | ~40990 | ~246 | ~31048 | ~1383 | ~227 |
| AUV per outlet | 150 M JPY | 470 M JPY | 145 M JPY | 230 M JPY | 465 M JPY | 37 M JPY | 730 M JPY | 450 M JPY |
| Sucess model | In-store noodle making and freshly prepared experience | Digital ordering and advance ordering | Delivery and takeout focused | Mobile ordering and membership ecosystem | Healthy food and digital ordering | App ordering, low prices, and fast service | Service experience, experiential value, and membership programs | Asian noodle concept deployed across multiple use cases |
※ AUV includes estimates based on public documents, sales data, and restaurant counts. Exchange conversion rates are approximate.
Focus on the model of success, not the numbers themselves
What matters here is not the numbers themselves.
Around the world, there are restaurant brands achieving annual sales per store of 200 million yen, 400 million yen, or even 700 million yen. These are not fantasy figures. However, the way they achieve them differs by business model.
- Marugame Udon refines the in-store experience.
- Chipotle refines advance ordering and pickup flow.
- Domino’s focuses intensely on delivery and takeout.
- Starbucks advances mobile ordering and membership programs.
- Haidilao transforms the service experience into brand value.
In other words, successful restaurants are not all doing the same thing. However, they do share one thing in common. They clearly understand their strengths and design the revenue channels where those strengths can be utilized most effectively.
What noodle restaurants should be thinking about
The question noodle restaurants should ask is not: “Which success story should we imitate?”
The important question is: “How many revenue channels can we create that are compatible with our noodles, our customer base, and our location?”
Udon, Soba, and Ramen all have tremendous potential.
- They are warm
- They are quick
- They are everyday foods
- They are satisfying
- They can be enjoyed alone
- They can be enjoyed with family
- They can be enjoyed during work hours
In other words, noodles are products that fit naturally into people’s daily lives. At the same time, noodle dishes also face challenges.
The noodles soften over time and the balance between soup and noodles deteriorates
The excitement of eating in the restaurant is difficult to reproduce as takeout. That is precisely why there is room for further innovation
Designing the revenue channels noodle restaurants need
Going forward, noodle restaurants need to design multiple revenue channels rather than relying only on dine-in customers. For example:
Separate the noodles and broth.
| Separate the noodles and broth. | Develop noodles specifically for takeout | Offer meal kits that customers finish at home | Create corporate lunch sets | Design menus exclusively for advance orders | Build mobile pickup systems | Further enhance the in-store experience | Develop frozen products and household products |
These are not simply additional sales methods. They require integrated thinking about:
Noodle design
soup design
Container design
Pickup-flow design
Operational design
Customer usage-occasion design
All of these elements must be considered together.
How many entry points can you create within customers’ lives?
The era of measuring sales only through customer visits is ending.
Customers eat in the restaurant at lunchtime. They take food home for their family in the evening. Companies place group orders. They buy household meal kits on weekends. They order through their smartphones and pick up without waiting.
The question is how many entry points you can create within customers’ daily lives.
That is where the greatest opportunities for future noodle restaurant management exist.
Be chosen inside the restaurant. Be chosen outside the restaurant. Be chosen at home. Be chosen at work. Be chosen on a smartphone
If you can create this situation, the revenue potential of a single store expands dramatically.
The role of Yamato MFG
Yamato MFG is not only a manufacturer of noodle-making machines. It is also a company that studies the global noodle business. There is no need to copy global success stories exactly.
What matters is learning from successful patterns around the world and translating them into forms that fit Japanese noodle restaurants.
To do that, it is necessary to consider:
- Noodle design
- Texture design
- Stock and soup design
- Menu design
- In-store experience design
- Takeout design
- Delivery design
- Advance-order design
- Operational design
- Revenue-channel design
Yamato will continue to provide information that helps with restaurant development, product development, and sales growth.
The next stage of growth is not about working harder, but about creating more ways for customers to choose you. Successful restaurants maximize their strengths and build revenue channels around them.
The same applies to noodle restaurants. The question is not whether customers will choose you, but in how many moments of their lives they will do so.
Fujii ‘Rocky’ Kaoru
