Japan’s most popular curry rice restaurant chain, Coco Ichibanya, might be for sale

Economic and cultural factors are making it hard to make money selling one of Japan’s favorite meals .

For curry rice fans, buying some Cocoichi often sounds like an appealing idea.

Soon, though, someone might not only have the opportunity to purchase curry rice at Japan’s most popular curry restaurant chain, but to buy the chain itself.

Curry House Coco Ichibanya , to use the restaurant’s full name, was founded in Nagoya in 1978, and from the start it made use of curry roux supplied by House Foods Group .

As the chain grew, House Food Group became increasingly convinced of its potential, eventually acquiring shares in Ichibanya Co., Ltd., Cocoichi’s management company.

In 2015, House spent an additional 30 billion yen (US$189 million) to purchase even more Ichibanya stock, raising its share of the company from 19.5 percent to 51 percent and making it a consolidated subsidiary of House Foods Group .

Now, though, House is considering selling off its ownership stake in Ichibanya as part of a reevaluation of its business portfolio, as it attempts to refocus its resources on ventures that it feels promise higher profitable and rates of growth, ▼ How could someone be willing to say goodbye to this? House Foods feeling like it’s tough to make money selling curry might seem strange, given that curry rice is one of the most broadly popular dishes in modern Japanese cuisine, loved by men and women both young and old.

Sure enough, during its 2025 fiscal year, Ichibanya posted sales revenue of 65.5 billion yen, up 7.4 percent from the year before .

At the same time, though, the company’s net income tumbled to 2.5 billion yen, a 19.2 percent drop from the year before, with increased ingredient costs cited as a major factor .

Rising materials costs put Cocoichi restaurants in a bind, because as popular as curry rice is in Japan, it’s seen as simple comfort food, not fine dining.

There’s a relatively low limit to how much restaurant diners are willing to pay for it, even if the flavor is excellent .

There’s also the fact that curry is a common thing for people to cook at home in Japan , and recipe sizes can be easily expanded in order to cook several days’ worth of meals at once.

That creates a sort of multiplier effect where the cost savings of home-cooked curry can be enjoyed for many consecutive meals, making it even more difficult to position restaurant curry as a premium product, and in turn making it difficult for curry restaurants to offset higher ingredient costs by raising their prices.

We’ve been seeing examples of Coco Ichibanya losing customers as it raises prices since 2024, and while initially that was offset by the remaining diners spending more on a per-person basis, the math doesn’t appear to be working in the chain’s favor anymore.