“Okachimachi Rest” opened on March 29, 2022. It is a Japanese dining with a menu centered on Japanese food and sake. The concept is “more than izakaya, less than kappo”. The store is operated with the image of a kitchen where one customer or neighbor can easily come. Recently, the reputation of the restaurant has spread through word of mouth, and it is a restaurant known to those in the know.

Affordable price and wide variety of sake

The biggest feature of the store is the reasonable price and abundant alcohol. A typical izakaya offers foods which are cheap, but the types of alcohol are limited. Conversely, at restaurants that mainly serve alcohol, the food prices are high. As a strategy, they opened it aiming at the middle between the two.
The shelves in front of the counter are lined with many types of liquor.
4-5 types of sake are regularly served. Others are changed frequently. The hidden sake is changed twice a week. Also, as long as you pay 3,000 yen, you can fully enjoy the food and sake. In addition to the regular menu, there are also menus that change frequently, so many customers feel that they never get tired of coming.

In addition, they offer high-quality dishes at low prices. Ingredients are locally sourced or specially ordered from all over Japan. They check it themselves and carefully select it before putting it on the store.

They offer a wide variety of alcoholic beverages and reasonably priced dishes.

Customer service close to customers

Customer service is one of the most important points in a restaurant. At Okachimachi Rest, they are conscious of shortening the distance with customers when serving customers. Behind this is the idea that “those who come to the store for the first time should feel free to enter the second time.” I feel that the friendly atmosphere in the store is created by the customer service. As a result, they have many regular customers, some of whom come three times a week. They say that they want to continue to cherish the overall direction of the store, “an atmosphere where you can say anything, even if it is difficult to say.”

Featured menus

「EDO SHITAMACHI」

Dry Japanese sake from Yamanashi Prefecture. It has been selling well at this restaurant, and it is easy to drink with no peculiarities. It has an intermediate taste between clean and heavy. Sake recommended by the store manager.

「KAGOSHIMA BLACK PIG CHINESE CABBAGE HOT POT」

The base of the dashi is a mix of chicken bones and bonito. If you use only chicken, the taste will be easy to get tired of. If you add other ingredients, the pork broth will disappear. Therefore, the chicken and bonito are blended in a well-balanced manner to obtain the broth. In addition, it is said that if you make rice porridge with the soup stock made from black pork, it will be very rich.

「POTATO SALTED FISH」

A menu that combines potatoes and squid salted fish. A simple but very addictive dish. The ingredients are Hokkaido potatoes, which are high in starch and low in moisture. Therefore, it will be soft and flaky when steamed. They don’t use the ones from Honshu because they contain too much water. Also, it is recommended to eat it by sandwiching butter between potatoes and salted fish.

Future prospects

It is predicted that the number of overseas customers will increase in the future as the restrictions of the coronavirus are beginning to be relaxed. Based on the desire of the store manager, “When you come to Japan, please try authentic Japanese food,” they would like to incorporate foreign-style Japanese food into the menu in the future. In particular, they anticipate an increase in customers from Asia, so They are thinking of Asian-style　seasoning, such as a mix of Korea and Italy, and a mix of Thailand and Japan. Such seasoning is currently being developed through trial and error. We are looking forward to the future menus for overseas customers at Okachimachi Rest.

Maejima Naoko
（Okachimachi Rest Manager）

For about 20 years, she ran an IT company. After that she went into the restaurant industry. She has been interested in this industry for a long time because she worked part-time in the restaurant industry when she was young. Opened the first store in Ueno in 2015. A second store opened in 2019. Currently, she operates three stores in Ueno.