30.1　Who Do You Want to Come?

When people talk about attracting guests, they want to start with advertising methods. But there is something to decide first. It is what kind of guests you want to come. If you advertise without deciding this, you will not reach the people you want. Instead, you will get only people who are not a good fit.

The kind of guests you want to attract is called your clientele. Your clientele follows from your restaurant's concept. You learned about the concept in Chapter 29. For a restaurant that serves only omakase (chef's choice), the clientele is people celebrating special occasions or entertaining business guests. It also includes people who love sushi and want to watch the chef at work. For a restaurant that puts its effort into lunchtime nigiri, the main guests will be people who work nearby.

Your clientele is also tied to your location. A restaurant in front of a train station gets guests who are passing by. For such a restaurant, the sign and how easy it is to walk in matter most. A restaurant at the end of a back alley gets only people who come looking for it. For such a restaurant, reservations and ways to help people find it become important. What you put your effort into depends on which type your restaurant is.

Once you have decided on your clientele, think about the path those guests take when choosing a restaurant. Where do they hear about it? What do they look at to decide? How do they book? If they cannot find your restaurant at any point along that path, they will not come. From the next section on, we follow this path step by step.

Thinking in two numbers

The work of attracting guests is easier to understand if you split it into two parts. One is getting new guests to come. The other is getting guests who came to come back. Sales, you will recall, are the number of guests times the average spend per guest (Chapter 27). The number of guests is made up of new guests plus returning guests.

Let's think through an example. This is a made-up example for explanation. Suppose a restaurant gets 300 guests a month, and half of them, 150, are returning guests. If the share of returning guests drops to 30%, the restaurant must bring in 210 new guests every month to keep the same 300. With half returning, 150 new guests are enough. The more guests come back, the less a restaurant has to rely on advertising. That is why the second half of this chapter talks about building regulars.

30.2　Getting Found

Business listings on map apps

Today, many guests look for restaurants with a map app on their smartphone. When they search for "sushi near me," restaurants appear on the map. The restaurant's name, location, hours, phone number, and photos shown there are its first face to guests.

Most map services let restaurant owners register and edit their own restaurant's information. Once you open, set this up first. Above all, keep the information accurate. If your listed hours are wrong and a guest ends up waiting outside a closed restaurant, that person will never come again. Each time you close temporarily, or change your hours around the New Year holidays, update the listing.

Using listing sites and reservation sites

There are also restaurant listing and review sites for finding places to eat, and reservation sites where people can book a table. Many people look at them, so they have the power to make your restaurant known to new guests.

However, most of them charge a commission. Some charge a fixed listing fee every month. Others charge for each reservation, or for each guest. How the fee works and the rate differ by site and contract, and they also change over the years. Always check the terms before signing a contract.

When you think about these fees, do the math. Here is a made-up example. A restaurant has an average spend of 10,000 yen per guest, and pays a fee of a few hundred yen for each guest who books. If the fee is 500 yen, that is 5% of sales. A sushi restaurant's food cost percentage is fairly high (Chapter 27), so these few percent can cut deeply into profit. On the other hand, if that guest becomes a regular and comes many times, there is no fee from the second visit on. Think of these sites as an entrance for meeting new guests. Turning guests who come in through that entrance into regulars is your own job.

Keeping photos and information accurate

Wherever you post photos, use photos of what you actually serve. Guests will be disappointed if you post toppings you no longer serve because the season has changed, or photos of dishes arranged more lavishly than the real thing. When you use words such as the place of origin or "wild," write only what is true. In Japan, displays that make things look better than they really are are prohibited by a law called the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations.

30.3　Social Media and Photos

Sushi is a dish that looks great in photos. A single small piece holds the color and gloss of the fish and the marks of the knife. Social media are places on the internet where you can share photos, short videos, and text. For a sushi restaurant, social media are a tool for making the restaurant known without spending money.

What to show

• The day's toppings　The fish that came in today, and fish in peak season. A post saying "Here is what we have today" also works as a note to your regular guests.
• Advance preparation and the chef's work　Filleting fish, curing kohada (gizzard shad), cooking tamagoyaki (Japanese omelet). Showing the work that guests do not see helps them understand the value of each piece.
• A clean restaurant　Polished cutting boards and a tidy refrigerator. Cleanliness builds trust all by itself (Chapter 31).

Things to be careful about

Always get a guest's permission before posting a photo that shows them. Also, do not post the names of people you met at the restaurant or describe what they were doing. That is because some people do not want others to know where, and with whom, they ate.

The other point is how your hygiene looks. In Japan, a video of a chef shaping nigiri with bare hands looks like a display of skill. But to people from countries where gloves are the norm, it can look unsanitary. Also show the chef washing hands and dipping them in tezu (vinegared hand water). Add a short note on why it is safe to shape nigiri with bare hands. This prevents misunderstandings (Chapter 6).

Keeping it up matters

On social media, posting a little at a time but steadily is more powerful than an occasional big post. For example, decide to post 1 photo of your toppings 3 times a week, in a break during advance preparation. Choose a number of posts you can manage, and keep it up. A restaurant that keeps posting sends the message, "This restaurant is still going strong."

30.4　Dealing with Reviews

Restaurant listing sites and map apps have a section where guests post their impressions, called reviews. Many new guests choose a restaurant after reading reviews. Good reviews are encouraging. Bad reviews are painful. But sometimes they contain clues for improving the restaurant.

How to respond to bad reviews

Many sites let the restaurant post a reply. When you reply to a bad review, remember who is reading. It is not only the guest who wrote it. Many people who might come in the future are reading too.

1. Thank them for coming　First, thank the guest for visiting and for writing about their experience.
2. Apologize for the bad experience　Before giving any excuse, apologize for making them feel unhappy.
3. State the facts briefly　If there is a misunderstanding, state only the facts without blaming anyone. If you have fixed something, say so.
4. Say you hope they will come again　Finally, close with words hoping for another chance.

In your reply, never write the guest's name, when or with whom they came, or what they ate. Doing so would reveal the guest's private matters to others. Arguing back, writing sarcastic remarks, or trying to find out who wrote the review all hurt the restaurant's reputation more than the review itself.

Handle reviews that say someone became ill separately. If food poisoning is suspected, respond according to the steps in Chapter 26, such as consulting the public health center, before you write any reply.

What you must never do

Having restaurant staff or acquaintances pretend to be guests and write good reviews. This is called posting fake reviews. Sometimes restaurants also get guests to write good reviews in exchange for a discount or a free dish. Both of these deceive the people who read the reviews.

In Japan, since October 2023, advertising that hides the fact that it is advertising has been prohibited under the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations. This is called the regulation of stealth marketing (undisclosed advertising). If a restaurant asks for reviews or gives something in return, and then presents those reviews as ordinary impressions, it may violate this regulation. Many sites also forbid fake reviews in their terms of use. If you are caught, the restaurant's trust collapses all at once.

30.5　Building Regulars

Regular guests are the foundation of a restaurant. If some guests come every month, sales become stable, and you can predict how much to buy. If regular guests bring their friends, you do not need to spend money on advertising.

Guest records and notes on preferences

The tool for building regulars is guest records. These are notes on each guest who visits: name, contact details, dates of visits, what they ate, and what they like. They can be in a paper notebook, or in the records that come with a reservation system.

Here are some examples of what to write in the records. Likes hikarimono (silver-skinned fish). Prefers a smaller shari (sushi rice). Drinks one go (180 mL) of sake, unheated. Last time, enjoyed the red sea bream (madai) kobujime (curing between kombu sheets). If you check the records before the guest arrives, you can say even to a second-time guest, "Last time you enjoyed the kobujime, didn't you?" You learned in Chapter 26 about hospitality that senses each guest's preferences. Guest records are a tool for keeping that up across the whole restaurant, without relying on one chef's memory.

Protecting personal information

Guest records are a collection of personal information. Japan has the Act on the Protection of Personal Information. Under this law, businesses that handle personal information, including small restaurants, must follow certain rules.

• Decide how you will use it, and tell guests　Decide on the purpose and let guests know. For example: "We use this to manage your reservations and to send you seasonal news."
• Store it safely　Keep notebooks in a place that locks, and lock your computers and smartphones. Make sure staff who leave cannot take the information with them.
• Do not give it to others　Do not give it to other companies or people without the guest's consent.

Seasonal news and referrals

Some restaurants send seasonal news to their regular guests. "The shinko (baby kohada) are in." "Icefish (shirauo) season is here again." A note announcing peak-season fish is something only a sushi restaurant can send. It can be a postcard, an email, or a social media post.

However, there are rules for advertising emails. In Japan, you may send advertising emails only to people who have agreed in advance to receive them. Do not simply start sending them because someone gave you a business card, or because you asked for their phone number when they booked. When a person has given you their address themselves, for example on a business card, the law may allow it, but asking for their consent first protects the restaurant's trust. Each email must include the restaurant's name and a way to stop receiving the emails.

Regular guests sometimes bring along people they know. This is called a referral. Guests who come through a referral trust the restaurant from the start. Serve them with even more care than usual, so that the regular who introduced them is not embarrassed. That is the best way to thank the person who made the referral.

30.6　Guests from Abroad

Many guests from abroad visit sushi restaurants in Japan. At restaurants outside Japan, guests come from many different countries. Prepare in advance for differences in language and eating habits.

Multilingual menus

Prepare menus not only in Japanese but also in English and other languages that many of your guests speak. The names of sushi toppings sometimes do not get across even when translated. Turning "kohada" into the English name of a fish does not tell anyone how it tastes. Put a photo next to each name, and add a short description such as "silver-skinned fish cured in vinegar" or "simmered anago (conger eel) with a sweet sauce."

Also note whether each item is raw or cooked. This lets people who want to avoid raw food, pregnant women, and people with weak health choose for themselves (Chapter 26). Japan has no custom of tipping. There are also rules unique to Japan, such as the charge for otoshi, a small appetizer served automatically that comes with a fee. Writing these things on the menu helps prevent misunderstandings at the time of payment.

Asking about allergies and religious dietary restrictions

Always ask guests from abroad what they cannot eat, either when they book or when they sit down. When language is a barrier, prepare a sheet that lists common allergens and dietary restrictions in several languages, and ask guests to point.

The range of allergens differs by country. In Japan, labeling is required for 9 items, but in the EU and the United States, fish as a whole is one of the main allergens (Chapter 26). Among religious dietary restrictions, sake and mirin can be a problem under Islamic halal rules. Make sure the chef can answer whether the nikiri (simmered soy glaze) or the tsume (sweet reduced sauce) contains sake (Chapter 26). If you do not know, do not serve it.

Prepayment

Guests who are traveling sometimes cannot come even after they book. They may not have a Japanese phone number, so you may not be able to reach them. Prepayment, where guests pay part or all of the bill in advance by card or another method when they book, is one way to prevent such problems. It also makes paying on the day easier for the guests.

30.7　Reservations and No-Shows

When a guest who made a reservation does not come and does not contact you, it is called a no-show. In Japan, too, people use this English word. For a sushi restaurant with few seats, a no-show is a serious blow.

The blow to a sushi restaurant is serious

Let's calculate with a made-up example. A restaurant has 10 counter seats, and the average spend per guest is 10,000 yen. One evening, a reservation for 2 people is a no-show. With 2 seats empty, the evening's sales drop by up to 20,000 yen. On a night that would have been fully booked, 20% of sales disappear. Because those seats were held for the reservation, you may have turned other guests away.

The damage does not stop there. For an omakase reservation, you have already bought fish and finished advance preparation to match it. Some raw fish cannot be carried over to the next day. You learned how to plan purchasing in Chapter 28. A no-show makes you lose both sales and ingredients.

Setting deposits and cancellation fees

There are three main ways to prepare for no-shows.

1. Confirm the day before　For example, on the day before the reservation, confirm the visit by phone or message. This reduces cases of guests simply forgetting.
2. Ask for a deposit or prepayment　Especially for omakase reservations and large groups, ask for part of the bill in advance.
3. Set a cancellation fee and tell guests in advance　Decide until when cancellation is free, and how much you charge for later cancellations and no-shows.

The most important thing about a cancellation fee is to state it clearly in advance, when you accept the reservation. If you suddenly demand it afterward, guests will not accept it. Give the same information in the description on the reservation site, in the confirmation email, and at the end of a phone reservation.

Set the amount of the cancellation fee to match the actual loss the restaurant suffers. Japan has a law called the Consumer Contract Act. Even if you set an amount to be paid on cancellation, any part that exceeds the average loss a restaurant suffers in similar cases is invalid. The size of the loss differs between an omakase reservation, where you plan the meal and prepare the ingredients, and a reservation for seats only. For each type of reservation, set the fee with a clear basis.

Whether by phone or through a reservation site, make the way you take reservations the same across the restaurant. Whoever takes the reservation should give the same explanation and write the same things in the guest records. This protects your guests' trust, and it protects the restaurant.