What is Yatai?

Unlike the standard, past stationary settings of the restaurant or home, dining today often occurs in mobile environments—made conspicuous to the public eye, yet often overlooked. In particular, “street” food is a culinary niche that enables a heightened awareness of a food’s sensory elements rather than placing attention on other components such as restaurant decor. Specifically, I turn to the highly frequented yatai (food cart) business in Fukuoka, Japan, the shifting attitudes toward yatai in a contemporary period involving the COVID-19 outbreak, and its salient presence in the Japanese matsuri (festival) scene to tackle the cultural implications exerted upon locals, tourists, and academia—namely in how they subvert the common dining experience, bolster a unique localized dining culture, and complement a nation’s culture by reinforcing tradition. 

First, we must define what differentiates Japanese street food from other cuisines, from whose perspective street food is seen as lesser. Put simply, yatai “street” food is sold from makeshift carts or stalls that sometimes provide little-to-no access to seating and do not fulfill catered services to customers well known to Westerners like a waiter’s or waitress’ service, request for refills, the necessity to tip, etc. Therefore, the management load of running a yatai is smaller than a full-scale restaurant operation. As for food quality, a common debate owed to Yatai must demystify a gray area in which dishes are deemed “restaurant” or “street” food. Common examples of Japanese fares sold by yatai include but are not limited to, ramen, okonomiyaki, and gyoza, which are also sold at restaurants but become street food when sold on the street. However, this broad description of yatai does not sufficiently satisfy the matter at hand. One might easily complicate it by citing the possibility of a newly-formed Yatai smack dab in the middle of the Tokyo Metropolitan area, and justify that their high-end A5 wagyu steak sandwiches, for instance, are now considered a “street” food. So then, can anything and everything classified under the umbrella term of food be labeled as “street food” as long it adheres to the “traditional” yatai protocol? Not necessarily. 

Examining Yatai Culture

Looking towards what is arguably one of Japan’s most prominent and successful yatai streets—accompanied by vibrant dining settings, a rich local history, and flocks of tourists—we turn to Fukuoka City which epitomizes yatai culture by its key feature: close dining. However, these yatai are anything but discrete structures to the locals and tourists who become enamored with the concept of eating in close quarters to one another. Since all yatai in Fukuoka City must abide by stall dimensions of 3.5 meters in width, 2.5 meters in depth, and 2.5 meters in height, it is natural to assume an inherent intimacy exists for customers who dine in such proximity to one another (濵田貴広, et al). Many travel blogs advocating for the sublime nightlife yatai scene advertise that “Enjoying beers and bar chow while rubbing elbows with locals is one of the best things you can do in Fukuoka” (JB & Renee), and “A special feature of nighttime Fukuoka is the ‘yatai,’ or street stalls offering a range of tasty specialties including Hakata ramen and a chance to rub shoulders with the locals” (Kabashima, et al). These accounts imply that yatai are unlike anything else among modern dining practices that bring cultural invigoration by using the presence of Japanese regulars in Fukuoka as tourist eye candy. 

Themes of interconnectedness and continuity are as relevant and deep-seated as the food is in yatai. To examine this phenomenon, Kyushu University’s Faculty of Human-Environment Studies conducted a test on 60 students from the Department of Architecture who were tasked with describing their impressions of photos presented with adjectives the researchers created. There were six adjective groups, and the participants were asked to pick one adjective from each group from categories like “continuity,” “quietness,” “liveliness,” and so on (濵田貴広, et al). Researchers discovered that the general opinion of these stalls was strongly influenced by the setup and number of stalls shown in photos. When characteristic elements such as how exposed the interior of the yatai was, were prominent, participants were more likely to select perceived characteristics of the setting as “noisy,” “bustling,” and “open.” However, when a series of stalls were lined up closely together, adjectives related to liveliness and personability decreased, while beliefs about continuity increased instead. The more stalls there were, the more likely participants associated the group of yatai with a sense of harmony. Whereas one stall occupying its own space sticks out to an observant eye, groups of these stalls become homogenized with themes of unity and belongingness. Since business hours for yatai in Fukuoka run between 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. every day, this collectivist impression is uniquely attributed to the nighttime landscape which greatly highlights yatai’s togetherness. 

What the prior study lacks is distinguishing how differences in individual characteristics were responsible for changes in passerby perceptions towards yatai through a series of images, an issue addressed and later tested for by researchers. The three categories assessed from participants in a yatai’s specifications were the placement, setup, and distance. The test was conducted in 2007 with 70 Department of Architecture students. The students were asked, “Which one looks more (1) Cleaner, (2) Quieter, (3) More lively, (4) Warmer, (5) More individualistic, (6) More individualistic, (7) More quiet, (8) More lively” (濵田貴広, et al)? Results implied that when the viewpoint was farther away from stalls packed more closely together, there was a greater sense of liveliness and warmth. Conversely, from a distance, stalls further away from each other increase the sensation of openness, quietness, and cleanness. For the design of the yatai, if the stall’s front and sides were covered by a Noren curtain, it created a greater impression of liveliness. However, the impression of warmth was due to the visual availability of the inside, contingent on how occupied with customers the stall was. In terms of distance, individuality waned considerably as the image was shot one meter as opposed to if the image was shot at a distance of 5.5 meters. But as the perspective of an image’s distance to the stall moved towards 5.5 meters, adjectives surrounding cleanliness improved while uniqueness declined. Items like beer cases placed around the yatai’s interior, which were not visible from a distance of 1 meter and were only visible when the image captured the entirety of the stall, created the impression of openness when attention transitioned from the street to the stall view. What these studies did to unravel the essence between yatai to yatai strengthens and provides evidence about public perception of yatai’s strongest and most generalized elements. 

Localizing Yatai 

What brings clarity into this discussion of what yatai is—opening up new imagined perspectives—is the effect localizing street food has on a community. There exists some nuance among even Japanese citizens’ imagining of yatai culture geographically. A lifelong Osaka resident who takes immense pleasure in Dotonbori’s yatai can not immediately comprehend to the full extent that a permanent Fukuoka resident who frequents Nakasu Island’s popularized food stall scene leisurely savors their experience and vice-versa. The groups that collectively dictate food culture standards and etiquette within an area contribute to the local understanding of which foods fit yatai culture best. As they see fit, regulars of these stalls become habitual agents of cultural reciprocity with the yatai operators. Simply put, the people demand, the yatai respond, and the two coexist depending on each other’s wants. Back to the earlier scenario I presented, if the Wagyu Steak stand were introduced to some part of Japan, however arbitrary the location is, it must first be run through the community to accept it as a part of its dining cuisine. If a yatai cannot garner the necessary traction to become a transfixed part of the street food community it hopes to integrate into, it cannot spark the relationship that gives back to the community as much as the community invests in it. Therefore, it is impossible to envision yatai as a stagnant or unalterable cultural element—its needs constantly repurposed—as customers new and old adjudicate the standards. 

Yatai is a polarizing format of dining that remixes components of the well-known restaurant setting with that of the increasingly popular take-out genre but does not conform to either one for identification or even inspiration; however, yatai has built a reputation of cultural significance beyond its years since becoming a genre of dining fascinating tourists today. Fukuoka’s specialty food item is Hakata ramen, a variety of ramen originally from Fukuoka’s Hakata ward, well known throughout Japan for its distinct taste and standout features in its creamy, white broth (Mii). It is no surprise then that Hakata ramen is a typical menu item sold at yatai carts and stalls, although ramen is found more often inside the standard restaurant-oriented ramen shop because the preparation of the noodles and broth requires meticulous work. Therefore, Hakata ramen is the most prominent example of a local cuisine not limited to borders in the home, restaurant, or even yatai. Despite the deceiving exterior that these shacks of wood and other materials are made of, because of nearby competition, the food served at yatai is held to a similar standard of acceptability for taste that a restaurant is. 

Ramen is unique in that it stands as one of Japan’s most popular and beloved foods, carries ease in serving, and resonates with the Japanese identity, so the quality of yatai ramen and yatai food should not be neglected in comparison to a high-end product. For the most part, only the impression of the restaurant atmosphere is so drastically apparent at face value that people turn away from yatai. Reasons for a restaurant’s inflated food prices include covering high operating costs, service from the employees, and a greater focus on the ambiance that makes for an all-encompassing dining experience; however, yatai simplifies the main stage to the customer, the tasting experience, and occasionally, to the friend or stranger beside them. 

Yatai and Matsuri

Besides yatai as a means to consolidate local and nationalistic unity through food, how has it been utilized to reinforce tradition, some dating back to several centuries ago? Japanese matsuri (festival) are religious ceremonies in Japan meant to honor the Gods derived from Shinto. Matsuri varies case-by-case depending on which god or deity is being worshipped or for whatever occasion is the cause for commemoration. Still, it is usually split into two parts: the ritual and the celebration. The rituals include a purification by abstinence, requesting that the particular kami (secret power) be summoned, a food offering along with an occasional devotion of valuable possessions, a performance of ceremonial dances and music, and a withdrawal of the offerings as the kami is permitted to leave. The celebrations include some festivities such as a shared feast among priests and laymen of consecrated food offerings, followed by several acrobatic and stimulating performances like sumo wrestling, archery, and boat racing. The kami is brought out to the streets to bless the route it follows, accompanied by dancers, musicians, and floats. The ornately decorated floats are meant to resemble mountains, shrines, or boats and are strenuously carried atop a group of men’s shoulders (“Matsuri”). 

Unlike the daily, pop-up stalls that appear on streets in Japan, Yatai appears at matsuri because gods flock to lively places, and what better to attract groups and sustain a crowd than with delicious food (“What Are Yatai? Discover Japanese Festival Food Stalls Serving up Classic & Trendy Street Food: Live Japan Travel Guide”)? Common matsuri foodstuffs like takoyaki, yakisoba, and karaage, and sweets like cotton candy, chocolate bananas, candy apples, and others induce crowds that are both lucrative for these yatai and also bolster the community’s adherence to matsuri traditions. Where matsuri is present, one can be sure that yatai waits around the corner, often on shrine grounds. Yatai verifies the notion that the triad of religion, tradition, and food is so heavily interrelated with each other that observances are often not recognized as legitimate without all three present. Yatai commemorates the Japanese heritage of Shintoism and is very fitting to be intimately bonded with food, deriving the origin of many gods to the sustenance of food. The “Kojiki,” which tells the tale of the legends of old as they are known to have shaped the Japanese people and nation mentions, “On his way to the land of his dead mother, The Land of the Roots, Susanowo asked the female food deity Oho-getsu-hime for food. Taking our various kinds of food from her nose, her mouth, and her anus, she prepared delicious dishes and offered them to Susanowo…From the corpse of the slain female deity grew many products. From her head grew silkworms, from her two eyes seed rice, from her two ears millet, from her nose red beans, from her genitals barley and from her anus soybeans”(Danno, 26). Scholars believe these food sources were highly nutritional, and, therefore, crucial to the early Japanese diet and food identity. Not only was food integral at every stage of these Japanese creation myths but they were also viewed in the same light as the sacred bounty bestowed from the gods themselves. This might be another reason why yatai must bear an intimate connection with matsuri as they are both ways humans can draw connections that the sustenance they receive is tied back to intricately celebrating the good life granted to them by their gods. 

The Nakameguro Sakura-Meguri festival is a Japanese tradition dating back over a thousand years, welcoming the spring season with the act of Hanami (viewing of the flowers) (“Celebrating the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival”). The blooming of the Sakura trees to its iconic white and pink color is at the forefront of this event. Food is a major complementary asset; many of these yatai and local businesses fill themselves without room for much else throughout streetways. At these stalls, the usually sold items include the ubiquitous takoyaki and yakisoba, but foods themed to help absorb eventgoers in the spirit of the event align their taste buds to the lightheartedness of the mood. Specifically, a handful of regular desert varieties have been colorfully changed to the tune of the event. Chocolate bananas are doused in a bright pink strawberry coating instead of their standard chocolate flavor, and waffles, with so many pink decoratives one can barely fathom, dye the streets to the aesthetic of the dawning sakura cherry blossom trees. For the adults, specially themed alcoholic beverages like Sakura Highball and strawberry champagne accentuate their euphoria further. The full viewing experience is made far more flavorful with the addition of yatai for these very types of occasions, excelling at adapting to the cultural setting as traditional events require it. Though many citizens in countries like the United States would find it confusing why something as inconspicuous as the changing of the seasons should be celebrated, Japan communicates food and historical relevancies with communal resonance. And yatai would be the perfect supplement to reinforce those traditions in a way that is natural, commemorative, and memorable for curious participants. 

Entertainment organizations set on attracting tourists using idyllic settings painted by this annual hanami event highlight the food served by yatai as an allure to visit these lusciously pictured sites. Japan by Food, a YouTube account dedicated to promoting the local sights around Japan and its permeable culture through food, connects the discrete lines between food and culture in Japan that have become indistinguishable. Their video titled “Nakameguro Sakura Festival is Back: We Tried All the Cherry Blossom Foods! 🌸” showcases the attractive female host Shizuka Anderson posing, laughing, and touring the festival with an assortment of foods purchasable at the event. A host who is Asian in appearance but speaks in coherent English, her peppy attitude draws viewers and captivates them to feel as though the culture and food are inviting them (“Nakameguro Sakura Festival Is Back: We Tried All the Cherry Blossom Foods! 🌸”). The video naturally circumvents feelings of embarrassment from a lack of confidence and a language barrier separating most viewers and the culture, enabling their fantasies to travel to a dreamy place like the Nakameguro festival. Yatai, in this view, can be seen as an assisting agent to reservations about Japanese culture as a whole by which viewers are entranced to view the culture as sensually alien but not off-putting. Exercising a hybridity in the selection of foods and beverages reinforces familiarization with foods well advertised and recognizable to tourists as an introductory feature to segue the cultural specialties as mystifying. The yatai in this video are placed comfortably in the background, visually obscured by the tantalizing food and decor but ultimately play an active role in the influence of food that businesses advertise to tourists.

Utilizing a different method of cultural attraction, Youtuber Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com, peruses several yatai before the start of the Hachioji Fireworks Festival—a festival dedicated to preserving local tradition through “(1) Creation and inheritance of traditional local culture (2) Mutual solidarity and harmony among citizens and (3) Improving the image of Hachioji as a tourist city, according to the festival’s official website details (Hamada). The host, Risa, introduces yatai food in a way that extends a gateway to learning Japanese culture by intermittently providing translations and phrases to buy food in contextually appropriate scenarios. Foreigner audiences can, then, invest themselves in the culture by watching a Japanese person participate in an event they may hope to one day visit themselves and emulate that experience (“Street Food in Japanese Festivals”). She offers insightful translations of words when ordering at yatai, such as yatai (food stall), roten (street food), and demise (stall); names of popular yatai food such as takoyaki (ball-shaped octopus dumpling) and jaga batā (potato with butter); and an ordering request phrase –wa utte imasu ka (do you sell –?). Thus, yatai and a foreigner’s newfound cultural familiarity is fueled by a desire to feel accepted and comfortable ordering food in all applicable scenarios as a regular would. A foreigner’s interest in pursuing a culture starts with language that sparks a positive feedback loop of interest into more cultural engagement like with yatai. 

Customer vs. Owner: Perspectives on Yatai 

 With 37 new stalls added to Fukuoka’s prime yatai attraction areas since 2017 (Japan National Tourism), what commonality exists among the dining experience when hungry locals or tourists succumb to the irresistible aroma of Japanese yatai meals pervading the air? YouTuber Tokyo Foodie Sarah shares a glimpse of genuine exchanges with the locals, foreigners, and stall owners when dining out in two major yatai locations in Fukuoka: Nakasu and Tenjin. For many yatai stands where seats are limited and ushering a steady flow of customers in and out is essential for business, was it warranted that Tokyo Foodie Sarah’s first yatai encounter in Nakasu pressured her to leave the stall just as soon as she finished eating? “The atmosphere and the food was amazing but it’s not somewhere you would stay for a long time because, towards the end of finishing our food, we still had our food on the table. The staff were letting other people wait behind us so it pressured us to get out basically. I wouldn’t recommend you to expect to be able to stay for a long time. Maybe it’s good to just like have a drink or two, and then you move on to like proper restaurant” (Which Yatai Area, Nakasu or Tenjin? Fukuoka’s Open Air Food Stall” 01:01-01:30). Her observations imply to a primarily foreign audience that yatai dining may not be the tranquil and romanticized outing they presumably hoped. Although Tokyo Foodie Sarah’s yatai visit in Tenjin was a dining experience foreigners are more apt to imagine—with her engaging in meaningless banter with a stranger and his friend they befriended and even snapping a picture with them—her video insightfully demonstrates a dining procedure that is prone to vary based on the stand’s current popularity, menu items, and patience of its workers. Above all else, as a Japanese businesswoman who reviews restaurants all over Japan and adopts the name Sarah to connect with her audience, both Tokyo Foodie Sarah and tourists looking to soak in the sights should engage with yatai culture respectfully and not expect each experience to give preferential treatment because of their favorable dispositions towards this style of dining. 

So far we have covered the customer’s perspective, but looking through the lens of a seasoned yatai owner and their daily affirmations may further expand an easily misconstrued dynamic between a yatai owner and their customers. Youtuber Japanese food craftsman’s video “YATAI | TO EARN MY WIFE’s LOVE I worked this FOOD STALL for 50 YEARS! BWAHAHA!” shines a special spotlight on the day of a life of working the yatai stand 屋台もり(Food Stall Forest) that has been successfully running for over 50 years. The main appeal of the video broadcasts how motivated the amicable shop owner, Mori Takaki, diligently sets up his stall, prepares the ingredients, and keeps up with the constant demand of orders—all while remaining receptive and respectful to crowds of patrons deep into the night. His charm emanates an air of pleasantness from the images audiences are shown onscreen, thus, making him out as a very hardworking and reliable shopkeeper (“YATAI | TO EARN MY WIFE’s LOVE I worked this FOOD STALL for 50 YEARS! BWAHAHA!”). By and large, a surface-level watch-through and analysis of this video would point to yatai and similarly regarded ones as the gold standard, but more investigation into the real consensus may reveal more than a carefully directed promotion video divulges. 

When glancing through reviews of Food Stall Forest, many patrons, tourists and locals alike, were upset with what transpired while there, citing the stall’s service as a usual point of criticism. As of October 22, 2023, Google Reviews reports a 3.7/5 overall rating from 193 reviews for Food Stall Forest. “There was a customer in front of us who was lining up without a reservation, but when it was our turn, they suddenly said, ‘We have a reservation, so we can’t take you in.’ ‘We’ve been lining up for a long time, but… Even though I said, ‘We don’t do lining up,’ I couldn’t get in the end.” This Google user さっちん shows a clear dissatisfaction with the seating process, while a Google review from Connor Hjelm argued that “The seats were empty and the people already seated welcomed us, but the owner pretended to have a reservation. We went to the stand next door and saw the owner pick up two people without a ‘reservation.’ It’s definitely a slime ball. Don’t give money to this person,” a direct complaint about the reservation process again along with charged language against the ethics of this supposedly honorable food stall owner. The verifiability of each review is always a contentious matter, but when several reports arise from the shared animosity among yatai goers, it becomes logical to wonder whether the owner, staff, and service are to blame. Whether this was a cultural mishap or this yatai did wrong its customers enough for them to leave such poor reviews is a matter worth further investigation, but this example helps diffuse the conflation of yatai as all the same because they fall under the same food stall/cart archetype. A singular yatai experience cannot adequately speak on behalf of all others, but recognizing micro-level interactions between customer and owner helps develop the full picture of yatai. 

Yatai and Government Intervention  

What does the government have to say about the yatai business that imposes a political objective in this foodservice market? We may glean a better idea from a recent NHK World segment that magnifies the detail by which the hardworking Takada Yoshimasa wishes to climb the ranks of yatai, and eventually, restaurant stardom. As many of Fukuoka’s yatai owners comprise members of the older generation, Yoshimasa joined the competitive yatai business as a 20-year-old and rewinds to his humble beginnings in culinary before the disastrous COVID-19 pandemic hurt yatai owners everywhere (Ken). Although yatai is a dining environment that is conducive to circumventing COVID-19 policies, there were still mandates put in place early on in the spread that limited hours, stifling and closing many yatai in the process. 

Watching this video and interpreting it as a covert government effort to depict yatai as an infallible business is cause for alarm. We again see Mori Takaki of Food Stall Forest as the grand and renowned owner of his yatai for nearly 50 years, hinting that the government intended to connect the historical actuality of yatai with his stall’s constancy. Since Mr. Takaki is heralded as a legend among yatai in Fukuoka, I interpret his role as one implicitly validating the preservation and resilience of yatai as a symbol of Japanese culture. Ironically, though Mr. Takaki claims his drive to work tirelessly stems from his unwavering servitude to his wife in his dedicated YouTube video, the audience for the NHK program is not clued into any relevant details about her past or even her supposed existence. However, the star of this video, Mr. Yoshimasa, is already married by the young age of 23 but appears far more interested in affairs surrounding his yatai and his future expansion into restaurant holdings than he is in working for the sake of his loved ones (Ken). While both videos humanize each owner in their devotion to the craft, I find the interviews far more problematic in their generalizations of the Japanese as automaton-like figures who only know how to work hard and nothing else. It would appear convenient for foreigners to view the Japanese in this fashion: without much personality outside of their benign and hardworking nature. In this way, the Japanese government has resorted to a “soft power” method, assigning an unassuming, unthreatening air to yatai meant to attract and profit rather than to preserve a longstanding cultural practice that has historically built up the working class.  

Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the Japanese government’s prerogative has shifted to encouraging a return to normalcy by promoting solo leisure activities, and yatai has benefitted as a result. While Japan has moved forward with its agenda to push isolated activities as of late in areas such as karaoke, camping, sports, and dining, NHK’s World-Japan doubled down by covering an entire segment on it, filled with many internationals who spoke of solo activities with praise. Yatai was not explicitly mentioned in this episode but appears to benefit from a nationwide belief that solo dining is a relatively cool concept. No business was left entirely unaffected by COVID-19 including yatai, but there was certainly more upside for yatai than for other affected sectors. Yatai stalls and carts are those whose environment is optimal for those afraid or unable to eat at restaurants but yearn to eat out by emulating the dining out setting as closely as possible. Therefore, yatai may be the perfect supplement to the rising popularity in the solo dining culture, which checks off all the major concerns from when the COVID-19 virus was in full swing to its aftermath. With yatai not as widespread as it was in its heyday and the Japanese government sponsoring more solo activity endeavors, the virus may have been a blessing in disguise for these pop-up stalls, which are vying with time to achieve perennial survivorship and achieve greater levels of national recognition (“Solo Culture”). 

Yatai has existed for decades in Japan, surviving the tribulating times after the Second World War, and is continuously expanding its horizons with no signs of dissipation. Several outlets facilitated by media have ascribed yatai with liveliness, individualism, or collectivism. Limiting yatai to such a narrow function in Japanese society is an error because it can exist by defining a dining experience or as an accompaniment to other cultural and transnational intricacies. Though not well documented academically, the wide rapport of videos online consolidates its presence as a Japanese mainstay. Like many things that concern culture, yatai is and will likely never be free from the political connotations attached to it, but its ever-evolving form and interpretations carry a certain pride to the notoriety of Japanese food.