Japanese revolving sushi bar restaurant chain Kura Sushi yesterday opened its first overseas flagship restaurant in Kaohsiung. It is also the chain’s 51st outlet in Taiwan.
With an area of 2,000 ping (6,612m2), the flagship restaurant is the largest Kura Sushi outlet in the world, accommodating 288 customers, said Kura Sushi Asia Co (亞洲藏壽司), the company’s Taiwanese subsidiary.
The restaurant designed by Kasiwa Sato combines sightseeing and food, and features 100 Japanese-style lanterns at the front of the outlet, Kura Sushi Asia said.
Photo: CNA
The chain arrived in Taiwan in 2014 with the goal of opening 50 restaurants, a target achieved in January, Kura Sushi Asia chairman Kentaro Nishikawa said.
Kura Sushi has opened four global flagship restaurants in Tokyo and Osaka, and is launching its first overseas flagship outlet in Kaohsiung as it is upbeat about an anticipated boom in the local tourism, and food and beverage industries, the company said.
The conveyor belt sushi chain has 530 restaurants in Japan, 46 in the US, 51 in Taiwan and is set to open its first outlet in Shanghai this year, Nishikawa said.
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
While many restaurants withdrew from China due to its strict COVID-19 restrictions over the past few years, Kuro Sushi considers it a potential market for business growth and plans to open more stores there, he said.
The firm aims to increase its number of overseas restaurants to 400 by 2030, he added.
UNPRECEDENTED PACE: Micron Technology has announced plans to expand manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of a new chip plant in Miaoli Micron Technology Inc unveiled a newly acquired chip plant in Miaoli County yesterday, as the company expands capacity to meet growing demand for advanced DRAM chips, including high-bandwidth memory chips amid the artificial intelligence boom. The plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which Micron acquired from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion, is expected to make a sizeable capacity contribution to the company from fiscal 2028, the company said in a statement. It would be an extended production site of Micron’s large-scale manufacturing hub in Taichung, the company said. As the global semiconductor industry is racing to reach US$1 trillion
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
Memory chip stocks extended their losses yesterday after Alphabet Inc’s Google publicized research that could allow more efficient use of the storage needed for artificial intelligence (AI) development. SK Hynix Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, South Korean leaders in the market, fell more than 6 percent and about 5 percent respectively in Seoul. In the US, Micron Technology Inc, Western Digital Corp and Sandisk Corp slid more than 2 percent in pre-market trading, after they all closed lower on Wednesday. Memory companies have been on a tear in recent months as the rapid development of AI infrastructure triggered a spike in chip