The Safety of Conveyor Belt Sushi Safety in Covid Japan

    My family is really fond of sushi but our budget is usually a bit tight, so when we go out for sushi, it is almost always to Kurazushi, one of the many sushi chain restaurants with conveyor belts. Thanks to the long waits caused by the popularity of Kurazushi, we have found it necessary to branch out and try a Kappazushi, Hamazushi, and Sushiro as well.

    On some level, the safest meal these days is one you cook at home. Still, for the family that needs a break it is useful to see which restaurants are taking the pandemic seriously and which are not.

Kurazushi

    Kurazushi enforces social distancing in the waiting area by marking out seats with tape. They also put the check in screen right by the front door so those looking to punch in a code from their phone or just check the wait times don’t have to walk all the way through the lobby area.

    Years ago, they installed individualized sushi sneeze guards, so each plate must be grasped through a little, thumb-tip sized hole and pushed against the back of the guard to release it. Of course, this seems like excellent forethought now. It does mean that they keep running like a normal conveyor belt sushi restaurant with many things on the belt coming around in addition to the ability to order anything from the menu, which comes out on a rapid belt over the main belt, minimizing the time it spends in the air near anyone else. This works really well and for every five 100 yen plates, you get the chance to win a small plastic toy from the machine on top of the belt.

    I feel safe at Kurazushi, but so it seems does most of Miyagi which might be why we recently showed up to see a wait time stretching up to their closing time several hours in the future when we last tried to go. This drove us to reconsider Kappazushi, a similar restaurant located just down the street from that location.

Kappazushi

There goes the bullet train! At less than 2 seconds per table, it's a lot safer than the normal belt.

    Kappazushi is another chain of conveyor belt sushi restaurants across Japan. The last time I visited that location, I had been displeased at how cold the rice was and overall hadn’t enjoyed the experience much. This visit was completely different.

The lobby wasn’t crowded and people were spaced out with some spaced marked for social distancing.

    To counteract the horrors of old, dry, potentially deadly sushi wandering around the conveyor belt past every patron, they are sending things only when ordered and rapidly at that. Everything you want must be ordered using the touch screen which is also wireless and detachable from its wall-stand. The prices on the sushi were a little higher but the selection was a little fancier, too. Their choices on beef were significantly more delicious than anything similar I had enjoyed at Kurazushi in the recent past.

    In the end, even with the higher prices, we would up spending about as much as we usually do at Kurazushi. We didn’t win any plastic toys, but we do already have plenty of them.

Hamazushi

The under-bowls being all kanji doesn't make it easier for me to understand. Also, everything else about this place and the people.

    My husband had been asking me to try this other place since we went to Kappazushi and realized our daughter wasn’t as set on only one sushi place after all. This other place has duck, he enthused and I admitted I was curious about duck sushi.

    The first thing that made me uncomfortable was the lack of social distancing happening in the lobby. No seats were marked for social distancing and only a few tape marks on the floor existed for those paying and leaving, as if they are the only people who might be contagious or vulnerable. There may have been a sign encouraging people to wear masks but a lot of people weren’t, even when they were walking down the aisles or coming into the lobby.

    My husband hit the button and got a number. When our number was called about 15 minutes later, we had to go to the computer screen and enter a passcode on the ticket, after which the computer gave us our seat numbers and we sat ourselves. This might be helping the staff stay slightly further away from the public, but was also not explained at all and was fairly confusing for us.

    After we saw down, we noticed two things. One was that uncovered sushi was on the belt making rounds like we had travelled back to 2019 when that kind of thing might have been safe. There was no overpass for things to move quickly toward you, either. It turns out their method to deal with covid problems was to make everyone order what they want, then send those items to the table via the normal, slow conveyor belt sushi system, requiring each plate to spend 14 seconds per table of potentially ill, unmasked strangers between your seat and the chef. This might not technically be illegal, but it does not feel safe to me. We still ate there because we were hungry and I hadn’t had the time to think about it. By the time we figured out the system, we were stuck there for dinner. We did still enjoy the dinner and the smoked, grilled duck was delicious, but I won’t be eating it again until after the covid business is finished.


Sushiro

Katakana on the under-bowls is helpful but the plates going around so slowly is still dangerous.

    Weeks after those, we also tried Sushiro, which operated much as the one immediately prior had, but with signs suggesting social distancing and items on the conveyor belt being labelled as ordered, so no one was left guessing. The belt was just as slow as the last place but more people were masked while they walked about. It wasn't horrible and we didn't get sick afterward but I wouldn't be comfortable eating there again until after Covid.

    If you’re looking for safe conveyor belt sushi, Kurazushi is the best I have seen. Kappazushi is really good, too.

    If the whole idea of eating out right now terrifies you or you’re in a large urban area, it might be best to grab some take out sushi instead or make it yourself.