Global · Sushi Industry Trends

7-Hour Wait! The Secret Behind Kura Sushi USA's Rapid Success

On October 9, 2023, a new Kura Sushi USA location opened on the South Side of Chicago. On its opening day, an astonishing wait time of seven hours occurred, and it was featured in the news and other media, becoming a major topic of conversation in the United States.

This shows how extremely high expectations for Kura Sushi are on the South Side of America, but the situation is similar at many other Kura Sushi locations, where waits of more than three hours during peak hours are nothing unusual.

Such a phenomenon can be said to confirm that Kura Sushi USA is achieving great success in the United States.

Reasonable even at 550 yen per plate!

The price per plate at Kura Sushi USA is $3.65, which is equivalent to 550 yen at the current exchange rate. That is roughly five times the price of Japan’s Kura Sushi, which serves plates starting at 115 yen, and even taking the difference in cost of living into account, from a Japanese perspective it can be said to be set quite high.

There are several reasons for Kura Sushi’s tremendous popularity in the United States.

One is that the price of $3.65 is not expensive in the United States; rather, it tends to be perceived as reasonable for the value being provided.
At 550 yen per plate, Kura Sushi USA is a sushi restaurant with high cost performance in America.

High quality that surpasses American competitors

Another factor behind Kura Sushi USA’s success lies in its high quality.

Most of Kura Sushi’s menu is prepared systematically using sushi robots and part-time staff, and in Japan, the home of sushi, it is perhaps perceived less as a high-quality sushi chain and more as a reasonably priced family-style sushi restaurant. However, this receives an entirely different evaluation in the United States.

There are many sushi restaurants in the United States, but most of them were opened by local people, so the sushi may have rice as hard as a rice ball (onigiri), and from a Japanese perspective the quality is by no means high.

Under such circumstances, Kura Sushi USA, which prepares sushi ingredients imported from around the world according to the standards of its Japanese parent company, maintains a certain quality standard, and is therefore able to provide relatively higher-quality sushi than local sushi restaurants.

A well-supported, abundant menu and solid stock price

Just like Japan’s Kura Sushi, Kura Sushi USA offers more than 150 menu items, including side dishes such as ramen, udon, and desserts in addition to sushi.

Having such a diverse range of options is a characteristic unique to Kura Sushi, with its strict management processes, and this is a factor in gaining support from a wide range of customers.

In this way, Kura Sushi USA is steadily achieving unshakable success in the United States, and in response to this situation, many investors and analysts have also given it high marks, with the stock price continuing to grow steadily since its entry into the U.S. market in 2019.

As of October 2023, the analysts’ average stock price target is around $93, and Kura Sushi USA’s stock is rated a “strong buy.”
*This article is not a recommendation to invest.

Future prospects for Kura Sushi USA

It can be said that the factors behind Kura Sushi USA’s success lie in its ability to provide relatively high-quality sushi, its pricing that is reasonable for Americans, and its abundant menu that caters to a wide range of customers.

Kura Sushi has also achieved success across various parts of Asia, beginning with Taiwan, and going forward it is expected to further accelerate its global expansion, including into the United States and other markets.

However, in the United States, competitors are also advancing, such as Hama Sushi, run by the Zensho Group, which recently carried out a large-scale M&A, so it is uncertain whether things will necessarily continue to go smoothly from here.

For Kura Sushi to achieve even greater success in the United States, the key will be how much of a competitive advantage it can hold over its Japanese rivals.