Every evening at around 5:30 p.m. in Fukuoka, a curious transformation takes place along the city's main boulevards. Out of secluded parking lots and closed-off garages, wooden food carts emerge, pulled through the streets by their owners to selected locations across the city.
Nakasu, Nagahama, Tenjin, Hakata: Each district has its own collection of these carts, known as yatai.
After arriving at their spots, the owners, called yatai-san, duly unfold their carts, which become, until the early hours of the morning, makeshift restaurants that attract crowds in their hundreds. Yatai are the original pop-up restaurants, a mainstay of the Fukuoka food scene, renowned as much for their fare as their atmosphere, in which customers meet, greet and dine shoulder to shoulder.