As Japan's foodservice industry tries to stay afloat amid the coronavirus pandemic, some restaurants have been looking to the start of the day to make up for revenue lost in curtailed evening trade, offering popular lunch and dinner items in a new breakfast service.
A restaurant located near Tokyo's bustling Shimbashi Station began serving a morning yakiniku grilled meat set for ¥500 ($4.6) in August last year, after its operator's sales dropped 40% in May from a year earlier, according to Morihisa Arimura, president of Yakiniku Like Ltd.
Tokyo and some other prefectures remained under the first state of emergency declared over the pandemic for most of May as they were the last group in the country to end the "soft lockdown."