Japan’s superb egg sandwiches bought from self-serve roadside fridges have an inspiring backstory

The Overflowing Egg Sandwich crammed our abdomen and our coronary heart.

Egg sandwiches are an enormous deal in Japan, each a mainstay at comfort shops and a menu all-star at cafes and devoted sandwich outlets. When our most up-to-date egg sandwich craving hit, nevertheless, we headed for a row of sheds by the facet of the highway within the city of Atsugi in Kanagawa Prfecture, Tokyo’s neighbor to the south.

Every of those sheds accommodates a fridge, and every of these fridges is for egg sandwiches from an organization known as Yamamotoya. Yamamotoya operates the fridges as unmanned sandwich gross sales factors, principally merchandising machines however with fee on the consideration system. Once we rolled up a bit earlier than 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon, although, there have been loads of individuals who’d been drawn to this unmanned egg sandwich spot.

Truly, we’d initially arrived earlier within the day, a bit after 1 p.m., solely to search out each single fridge bought out. Fortunately, Yamamotoya posts a restocking schedule on the website, and so we knew that the following batch of egg sandwiches was coming in at 3:30. In fact, so did all the opposite individuals who we have been now ready along with.

▼ The posted schedule confirmed stocking occasions of 6, 9, and 11 a.m. and 1, 3:30, and 5 p.m.

Whereas it’s fairly widespread to see traces in entrance of standard big-city eating places in Japan, it’s a a lot rarer phenomenon to see a line for a merchandising machine approach out within the suburbs like this, however traces regularly type at Yamamotoya’s fridges, and that repute is what had drawn us out right here to attempt them for ourselves. Proper on time, at 3:30, Yamamotoya’s ship workers got here out from the adjoining workplace/workshop, and to hurry up the method straight bought sandwiches to everybody who was ready earlier than stocking the fridges.

Even then it nonetheless took about 10 minutes for us to stand up to the entrance of the road, however we lastly had it: the domestically legendary Yamamotoya Overflowing Egg Sandwich!

Standard because the sandwiches are, they’re priced at simply 300-yen (US$2.15). That worth additionally belies the beneficiant quantity of egg they’re full of. Yamamotoya isn’t kidding once they say these items are “overflowing.”

Now, regardless that Japan calls them “egg sandwiches,” you may argue that “egg salad sandwiches” can be the extra correct time period, for the reason that eggs are blended with mayo. As a matter of reality, some locations use a combination that’s so heavy on the mayo that the eggs actually take a secondary position. Not Yamamotoya, although – their egg sandwiches let the egg shine. Yeah, there’s mayo in there too, however the strongest impression in your style buds, for all the taste profile, is the wealthy eggs.

We have been so happy that we determined to return a pair days later for an additional Yamamotoya egg sandwich, this time stopping by on weekday shortly after midday, and this time there have been sandwiches within the fridges.

▼ Simply seize a sandwich and put your 300 yen within the field subsequent to the fridge to pay.

Other than the excellent style and distinctive gross sales methodology, there’s one thing else that impressed us about Yamamotoya. Based on the sticker on the sandwich’s wrapping, they’ve been in enterprise for 50 years! So after sharpening off our second egg sandwich, we determined to pay a go to to their workplace and discuss with firm president Sachiko Yamamoto.

Yamamoto advised us that Yamamotoya truly isn’t her first enterprise enterprise, and she or he’d beforehand run a store that bought numerous foodstuffs. “The enterprise wasn’t doing nicely, although, and we needed to shut it down,” she explains. “However our egg sandwiches have been standard, so I assumed I wished to attempt doing one thing else with them, and that’s how Yamamooya obtained began.”

“It doesn’t matter what occurs to you in life, all these issues are alternatives,” Yamamoto cheerfully asserts. “So once we shut down the shop, I wasn’t positive what was going to occur, however I stated ‘OK, right here comes one other alternative! Let’s do it!’ And we have been fortunate sufficient that lots of people favored what we did subsequent, and earlier than I noticed it, we’d been doing it for 50 years…Life provides you extra alternatives than individuals count on, and it’s necessary to seize maintain of them. Once we have been beginning Yamamotoya, I used to be simply doing all I may to seize maintain of 1, so I didn’t really feel scared or anxious in any respect!”

And earlier than we left, Yamamoto had some encouraging phrases for us.

“So once you see a possibility, don’t you hesitate. Attain out and seize it, earlier than that chance will get bashful and goes and hides someplace. Even in case you can solely gra a bit of it, one thing good will certainly occur. And even then, if issues begin to really feel like greater than you may bear, simply come see me right here once more. I’ll make you some egg sandwiches to cheer you up.”

Thanks, Ms. Yamamoto! It’s not on a regular basis that our lunch comes with a facet order or inspirational motivation, however we’ll maintain your phrases in our coronary heart, similar to you retain Yamamotoya’s sandwiches in these roadside fridges.

Location data
Yamamotoya Merchandising Machines / ヤマモトヤ自販機
Deal with: Kanagawa-ken, Atsugi-shi, Kamiogino 1270-2
神奈川県厚木市上荻野１２７０−２
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