A peek into Japan's convenience stores (Part 2)

Hello HN!

On my previous post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36110833#36123339) many people encouraged me to write about Japan's convenience stores.

I set out to write and it was so interesting I just _had_ to create a Part 2. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it!

Thank you!

That bento looks amazing for 5 dollars! It really can't be that cheap and look this good.

Some back story on the Lawson brand in Ohio:

As a child growing up in NE Ohio in the 60’s and 70’s, I used to ride my bike to the local Lawson store to buy candy, gum or a bottle of “pop.” Lawson was generally a clean, small and friendly neighborhood store with a limited selection of items. My parents would stop in on the way home from work or an outing to buy milk and bread or an evening snack. They had very good ice cream, and their onion chip dip was amazing—folks in NE Ohio still miss that dip (although a similar version is available at Circle-K now).

There was a classic Lawson TV commercial for their orange juice. The juice was squeezed in Florida and delivered to Ohio in refrigerated tank trucks “in 40 hours.” The trucks were labeled “Big-O” and the freshness of the juice was a big selling point. Here’s a link to the commercial on YT:

https://youtu.be/B7r6A6YQdtI

I believe most Lawson stores were run by families: husband and wife. My parents had friends who ran one for their entire careers and lived a decent middle class lifestyle.

The Lawson success story in Ohio pretty much ended when Consolidated Foods bought the company. But big changes were happening then anyway. I always found it to be so strange that someone in Japan would buy the rights to the name since it was really just a regional brand. When I went to Tokyo on vacation, seeing the logo on stores that look (and smell) nothing like the originals was a strange experience for me.

Thanks for the article!

I wish here in the USA we could get convenience stores even close to how good they are in places like Japan and Thailand. Why do they get 7-11: The Good Version?

It is.