{"id":67727,"date":"2024-11-08T23:00:21","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T14:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/nov\/08\/coffee-sandwiches-underwear-beer-day-in-the-life-japan-konbini-stores"},"modified":"2024-11-08T23:00:21","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T14:00:21","slug":"coffee-sandwiches-underwear-beer-a-day-in-the-life-of-japans-beloved-konbini-stores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=67727","title":{"rendered":"Coffee, sandwiches, underwear, beer: a day in the life of Japan\u2019s beloved konbini stores"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Convenience stores are a neat and functional retail institution in Japan, where customers can access the daily essentials, from buying breakfast to paying bills<\/p>\n<p>Kenji Yamamoto was unsure that his business would survive when he opened Japan\u2019s first convenience store in a Tokyo neighbourhood in May 1974. The 7-Eleven outlet he ran with his wife stocked tinned food and detergents, items that most people had previously bought from supermarkets. His first sale was a pair of sunglasses.<\/p>\n<p>Half a century later, it is not only the Yamamotos\u2019 bright red and orange uniforms that have changed. Convenience stores \u2013 or <em>konbini<\/em> \u2013 are no longer a late-night alternative to early-closing supermarkets, but a retail institution that millions of Japanese people could not imagine life without.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/nov\/08\/coffee-sandwiches-underwear-beer-day-in-the-life-japan-konbini-stores\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Convenience stores are a neat and functional retail institution in Japan, where customers can access the daily essentials, from buying breakfast to paying billsKenji Yamamoto was unsure that his business would survive when he opened Japan\u2019s first conve&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,6,88,335,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-business","category-japan","category-retail-industry","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67728,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67727\/revisions\/67728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}