When FamilyMart Co. opens a store in Hollywood, Calif., in July, the first Japanese convenience store in the U.S. might not be perceived as such by locals.
The major chain is determined to make its convenience stores as Japanese as possible. Japan imported the basic concept of convenience stores from the U.S. three decades ago.
"We have no intention of just making the kind of convenience stores that already exist in the U.S.," Shiro Inoue, chief executive of Famima Corp., the chain's U.S. unit, said during a recent interview with The Japan Times.