Saizeriya - Company History

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Financial history 1989–2025 — revenue, cost structure, balance sheet, cash flow and key ratios, year by year →

Founded 1967
Founder Shogaki Yasuhiko
Founding location 千葉県市川市
Core business at founding Low-price Italian restaurant
Listed 1999
President Matsutani Hideharu President since 2022 (age 68, as of 2026)
Current priority Overseas expansion · Store openings A 10,000-shop vision built on overseas openings
Founding
In July 1967 Shogaki Yasuhiko, then reading physics at the Tokyo University of Science, opened Restaurant Saizeriya as a sole proprietor at Motoyawata in Ichikawa, Chiba. He had given up on a career in research and chose a food business because it could start from nothing and grow large. When the shop burned down in a fire in April 1968 he started again in the same district, this time narrowing the format to Italian food, on the reading that food cooked with little labour and served much as the ingredient comes has eight or nine tenths of its taste decided by the ingredient rather than by the cook. In May 1973, with multi-shop operation in view, he incorporated the business as Marianne Shokai. Even with the format changed the customers did not come, and the business ran badly for several years from its opening.
The Decision
What marks the company is the judgement to write off conditions it cannot move and put its resources into the single variable that remains. Having concluded that neither the site nor his own cooking could be changed, Shogaki in the mid-1970s took the menu down not by a few loss-leaders but by cutting every item to half the going price. Reckoning that the sum people pay without thinking is twice the price of a magazine or a packet of cigarettes, he set a single dish at 380 to 440 yen, and fixed a rule that what was saved by taking cheap sites went into the cost of the ingredients. In 1997 he built the Yoshikawa plant and moved to manufacturing and selling direct, holding everything from procurement to processing in house; in 2003 he set up a wholly owned subsidiary in Shanghai and carried the low-price template into the Chinese-speaking market. The cost design built at home worked unchanged in another market and became the next source of earnings.
Today
The shape of the business is that the low-price shop operation refined in Japan has been moved to Asia, and that Asia now carries the thin margins at home. Of consolidated sales of $1.7B (¥257bn) in the year to August 2025, Japan accounted for $1.2B (¥173bn) and Asia for $560M (¥84bn), so not quite seven-tenths of revenue is domestic; but segment profit was $33.4M (¥5bn) in Japan against $67.5M (¥10bn) in Asia, twice as much earned abroad as at home. The Japanese segment ran at a loss for four straight years from the year to August 2020, and Asia stayed in the black throughout. The weak yen inflates the yen value of overseas profit while raising the cost of the directly imported ingredients that have been a strength since the founding. The same exchange rate works on both sides, the earnings and the costs.
Competition
The competitive setting is fierce. When Skylark converted its whole estate in 1992 to Gusto, at an average spend of $6 (¥760) a head, it was reported at the time that Saizeriya was what prompted it. By keeping to the discipline of avoiding prime sites in front of stations and opening only where the return on invested capital would exceed 20 per cent, Saizeriya reached an ordinary profit margin of 13.2 per cent in the year to August 1999, against about 5 per cent at the large family-restaurant groups, and its market capitalisation of $2.1B (¥240bn) at the end of November that year came close to the $2.2B (¥251bn) of Skylark, the leader. In the same period the large hamburger chains that broke prices paid the cost of doing so, whereas Saizeriya did not let the discount end as a way of drawing a crowd but carried it through into the design of its costs, and that is where the two diverged. At home it now competes on the efficiency of vertical integration with Zensho, which lines up many formats and concentrates its procurement.

Timeline

1967–1976A physicist's experiment, and the gamble of cutting prices by two-thirds

  1. 1967Shogaki Yasuhiko opens Restaurant Saizeriya at Motoyawata, Ichikawa, on 7 July
  2. 1968A brawl inside the shop overturns a kerosene stove; the restaurant burns down
  3. 1973The business is incorporated as Marianne Shokai, Ichikawa, capital $3,650 (¥1m)
  4. 1973Operation of the Italian restaurant Saizeriya begins under the new company
  5. 1975Every dish is cut to 60–70% below the going rate; the shop converts to low-price Italian
  6. 1975The signature Milano-style doria goes on sale at $1 (¥304)
  7. 1975The menu is narrowed to core dishes, ending wasteful purchasing

1977–2002From a Tokyo-area dominance to a stock-exchange listing and the move into China

  1. 1977The third shop opens at Ichikawa Kitaguchi; buying is strengthened alongside expansion
  2. 1981Entry into the shopping-centre format at Funabashi Lalaport
  3. 1987Entry into station buildings at Chapeau Motoyawata; renamed Mariano in April
  4. 1987A handheld order-entry system replaces handwritten slips
  5. 1989Entry into the roadside format at Kashiwa Mito Kaido
  6. 1991National multi-shop expansion begins in earnest
  7. 1992The fiftieth shop opens in Sapporo; the company is renamed Saizeriya in September
  8. 1994The hundredth shop opens at Enoshima, Fujisawa
  9. 1995Kansai base opened at Rokko Island, Kobe; the no-advertising policy is settled
  10. 1997The Yoshikawa plant is built in Saitama and the head office moves in
  11. 1998Shares registered over the counter with the Japan Securities Dealers Association
  12. 1999Listed on the Second Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange; sales $270.6M (¥31bn)
  13. 2000Moved to the First Section; manufacturing subsidiary set up in Australia
  14. 2001The Kanagawa plant is built; a record 130 shops opened in the year to August

2003–2026Expansion across Asia, and the reversal in the cost of sourcing food

  1. 2003The Hyogo plant is built; Shanghai Saizeriya Food and Beverage established in June
  2. 2003The first overseas shop opens on Tianyaoqiao Road, Shanghai, to an empty dining room
  3. 2004Every price in China is halved in August; customers rise fivefold within a month
  4. 2008Local subsidiaries set up in Taiwan, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore
  5. 2009Shogaki becomes chairman; Horino Issei, from Ajinomoto, becomes the second president
  6. 2011The thousandth domestic shop opens
  7. 2012Guangzhou Saizeriya Food established; anti-Japanese protests leave the shops untouched
  8. 2013The Chiba plant is built
  9. 2015Group customers pass 200 million in a year
  10. 2019The shop count at home and abroad reaches 1,500
  11. 2020First net loss: operating loss $35.7M (¥4bn); handwritten orders return chain-wide
  12. 2022Moved to the TSE Prime Market; Matsutani Hideharu becomes president in November
  13. 2023Overseas shops pass 500; record sales but profit guidance is cut
  14. 2025Sales of $1.7B (¥257bn); the Asa-Saize breakfast format begins

Founding Story

1967–1976A physicist's experiment, and the gamble of cutting prices by two-thirds

For its first decade Saizeriya was not yet a chain and barely a business: one upstairs room in Ichikawa that burned to the ground in its first year, run by a physics student who admitted he could not cook. What turned it round was not a better recipe but an act of arithmetic — the decision, around 1975, to take 60–70% off every dish and let the crowd pay for the food.

The fire at Motoyawata, and starting again from Restaurant Saizeriya

In July 1967 the founder, Shogaki Yasuhiko (正垣泰彦), opened a restaurant of his own[1], Restaurant Saizeriya[2]. He was in his fourth year reading physics at the Tokyo University of Science, and the shop stood at Motoyawata in Ichikawa; opening day, he later recalled, was 7 July, a butsumetsu day (仏滅, the unluckiest date in the traditional Japanese calendar on which to begin anything)[3]. He had at first meant to stay on in his university laboratory, but while commuting to a national research institute for his graduation thesis he changed his mind, deciding this was not work he wanted to do for life[4]. If he was going to start something himself, he judged, it should be a food business — one that could begin from nothing and grow large — and so he opened while still a student[5]. Then, on the night of 8 April 1968, in the shop's first year, two gangsters began fighting inside[6]; a kerosene stove was thrown between them, caught fire, and the restaurant burned down completely[7].

Of all the world's cuisines, Shogaki said, Italian is the only one whose way of eating has not changed over the centuries, and the reason is that it asks little labour of the kitchen[8]: eat the ingredient much as it is and you never tire of it[9]. Whether a dish tastes good or bad is decided by the ingredient, on his reckoning — 80–90% the ingredient, 5–10% the control of temperature and humidity, 5–10% the cook's work[10]. In a lecture in 1998 he restated the figures as 90% ingredient, 5% storage and handling, 5% cooking[11]. A second pointer towards Italian food came from watching the market. The fastest-growing ingredient of the post-war years had been garlic, but the route of adding chilli heat had already been taken by Sapporo ramen[12]. Next, growing at 130%, came tomato spaghetti and melting cheese — and from there Shogaki arrived at Italian food[13]. There was, as he saw it, no Italian chain anywhere in the world; even Olive Garden in the United States served a plate complete in itself rather than portioning by ingredient[14].

The last gamble — 60–70% off every dish — and the path to incorporation

He was in his twenties when he founded the business, and he said in later years that he was genuinely at a loss because no customers came. Having read physics, he thought in terms of cause and effect and separated the two: the first cause was the site, upstairs with an entrance hard to find; the second was that he himself, doing the cooking, had no skill, and the food was poor. The site could not be changed, because his mother would not agree to move; the cooking could not be helped either. The only variable left was price, and Shogaki, recalling this in 2017, said he brought prices down by as much as 60–70%. In 1993 he explained that every item on the Saizeriya menu was half the going price[15]. By that 1993 account, the sum people will pay for food without stopping to think is about twice the price of cigarettes or a magazine: the best-selling Weekly Shonen Jump (週刊少年ジャンプ) cost $2 (¥190) and a packet of Seven Stars $2 (¥220), so set a single dish somewhere between ¥380 and ¥440 and customers come of their own accord[16]. For something that would cost ¥1,000 elsewhere, anything under ¥500 reads as cheap[17] — and the signature Milano-style doria (ミラノ風ドリア, a baked rice gratin under white sauce), Shogaki revealed in 2017, was sold at $1 (¥304).

As customers multiplied he could no longer cook a wide range of dishes, and narrowed the menu to the core items people were pleased with. Cutting the number of items removed wasteful purchasing and made service efficient, so that even at low prices the shop could comfortably cover its costs — this, Shogaki concluded, was the origin of Saizeriya's low prices. On taste he set his own definition: what is truly good is what you can eat and eat again without tiring of it. In May 1973, with an eye on operating many shops in future and on growing further still, the sole proprietorship was incorporated[18]. Marianne Shokai Co., Ltd. was established in Ichikawa, Chiba[19], with capital of $3,650 (¥1m) in shares of ¥500 par value[20]. In his 1998 lecture President Shogaki said the purpose for which the company had been founded was to offer Japanese society a richer way of living through Italian food[21].

Read the full history in Japanese →

Notes

  1. Saizeriya Co., Ltd., annual securities report, 53rd term (year to August 2025), History section↩
  2. Saizeriya Co., Ltd., annual securities report, 53rd term (year to August 2025), History section↩
  3. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  4. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  5. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  6. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  7. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  8. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  9. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  10. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  11. 証券アナリストジャーナル (Securities Analysts Journal), May 1998, Saizeriya↩
  12. 証券アナリストジャーナル (Securities Analysts Journal), May 1998, Saizeriya↩
  13. 証券アナリストジャーナル (Securities Analysts Journal), May 1998, Saizeriya↩
  14. 証券アナリストジャーナル (Securities Analysts Journal), May 1998, Saizeriya↩
  15. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  16. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  17. あさひ銀総研レポート (Asahi Bank Research Institute Report) 2(7), no. 76, Asahi Bank Research Institute, July 1993↩
  18. Saizeriya Co., Ltd., annual securities report, 53rd term (year to August 2025), History section↩
  19. Saizeriya Co., Ltd., annual securities report, 53rd term (year to August 2025), History section↩
  20. Saizeriya Co., Ltd., annual securities report, 53rd term (year to August 2025), History section↩
  21. 証券アナリストジャーナル (Securities Analysts Journal), May 1998, Saizeriya↩

References & sources

  1. Asahi Bank Research Institute (Asahi Bank Research Institute report), July 1993, on the pricing and productivity model.

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