Considerable popularity of Japanese cuisine worldwide is well known, and is evident through relatively high number of Japanese-themed food service businesses.

In many cases these food businesses specialize in sushi and other authentically Japanese or Japanese-styled offerings, among which ramen in all its forms is gaining more and more popularity.

Such popularity of ramen makes many to think of venturing into ramen business themselves — for example, by starting their own ramen restaurants, so many of which exist in Japan itself.

This popularity of ramen cuisine can be traced to ramen’s extreme versatility, inclusivity, openness to innovation and creativity: regardless of whether you consume meat or not, or whether you can eat pretty much anything or may have certain requirements or restrictions based on your religion or medical conditions — you will feel yourself at home in the world of ramen — which can be made to accommodate more or less any eating pattern.  

In search of inspiration and knowledge fledgling ramen entrepreneurs sometimes come to Japan for ramen-shop tours or use Internet to search for any information that may help them form a clear picture, and guide them on their journeys to build and run their own ramen businesses.

There are, however, limits on what can be achieved through those methods: aside from experiencing the process from a customer’s viewpoint, although eating out at ramen shops may offer certain clues as to how they operate and produce their offerings, but there is only so much information that can be learned this way, and what can be found on the Internet is at times sketchy, lacks context or does not offer a holistic picture.

There are ramen schools, like the >one< offered by Yamato,  but taking their courses usually requires not an insignificant amount of time, and a certain amount of investment – and whether they are warranted may not be obvious for those who are still at the drawing board of their ramen ventures.