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Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

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Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#21
post #7

I ate a lot 7/11 onigiri as a poor grad student exploring Tokyo on a long layover once... they're truly wonderful little stores. (They also are one of the few places you can use an ATM, very useful given how cash based Japan is) He can be proud of the legacy he built, which is something many American founders cannot say with a straight face. Rest in power sir.

This is a bit out of date. These days basically any ATM allows foreign cards, just in time for Japan to finally switch to electronic payments in a big way (in particular PayPay).

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#22
Japanese 7-11 is a fascinating story.

Here is decent video on Youtube that goes into the history of the company, and why 7-11s are so different in the US and Japan (tldr: it's the core culture/infrastructure differences):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3EH4VmxMAo

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#23

I wonder how 7/11 in the US will change now that the Japanese version bought out the US version. Will we actually have hot and prepared food like Japan? I doubt it, seems the supply chain infrastructure just isn't there.

Besides the context in the other comments, they pushed the Japanese fresh food angle in a media blitz pretty hard last year (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/business/7-eleven-ceo-ste...). Egg sandwiches seem to be the most reliably available in the contiguous states, but you can also spot egg rolls and onigiri. They're also now bracing to close hundreds of stores and reopen a fraction of that number to match the new model: https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2026/04/17/7-eleven...

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#24
post #7

I ate a lot 7/11 onigiri as a poor grad student exploring Tokyo on a long layover once... they're truly wonderful little stores. (They also are one of the few places you can use an ATM, very useful given how cash based Japan is) He can be proud of the legacy he built, which is something many American founders cannot say with a straight face. Rest in power sir.

This is a bit out of date. These days basically any ATM allows foreign cards, just in time for Japan to finally switch to electronic payments in a big way (in particular PayPay).

Most let you use them, the post office and 7-11 had the lowest fees

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#25
post #7

I ate a lot 7/11 onigiri as a poor grad student exploring Tokyo on a long layover once... they're truly wonderful little stores. (They also are one of the few places you can use an ATM, very useful given how cash based Japan is) He can be proud of the legacy he built, which is something many American founders cannot say with a straight face. Rest in power sir.

This is a bit out of date. These days basically any ATM allows foreign cards, just in time for Japan to finally switch to electronic payments in a big way (in particular PayPay).

Yes. The payments landscape has shifted pretty dramatically in Japan over just the past 3 years. It used to be that you had to worry about getting cash, IC cards, refilling said IC cards, going to an actual bank with your passport, etc. Now all you need is an iPhone (although I hear Android phones from outside Japan still can't use suica).

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#26
post #7

I ate a lot 7/11 onigiri as a poor grad student exploring Tokyo on a long layover once... they're truly wonderful little stores. (They also are one of the few places you can use an ATM, very useful given how cash based Japan is) He can be proud of the legacy he built, which is something many American founders cannot say with a straight face. Rest in power sir.

American founders aren’t necessarily more malicious on average.

They just end up rewarded after doing shady tricks more often. Whereas in any other country being too devious too often is fatal.

I guess the archetypal example on HN would be Microsoft or Oracle.

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#27

I almost never go to a 7/11 in the US but every time I go to Japan I visit a 7/11 at least once a day. No matter where you are in Japan there's likely a 7/11 within walking distance and besides the usual assortment of drinks and snacks you can get quick full meals there of high quality. https://thisis-japan.com/7-eleven-japan-guide-2025/

Conbini meals only register as "high quality" to you because your comparison point (e.g, American 7-11) is an abysmal excuse for food. The food is, in reality, not that special.

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#28

I wonder how 7/11 in the US will change now that the Japanese version bought out the US version. Will we actually have hot and prepared food like Japan? I doubt it, seems the supply chain infrastructure just isn't there.

As others have mentioned, 7/11 in the US has been owned by 7/11 (Japan) for quite a long time, now.

There's some important organizational differences: Stores in Japan are almost entirely franchisee-operated, while stores in the US are more-or-less split 50% on being franchises or corpo.

It's hard to draw conclusions when they're shaped so differently.

But I can say this: Speedway is a large US chain of gas station/convenience stores, with ~2,800 locations (all of them corpo). They varied a lot; some had hot made-to-order food, some others were limited to roller dogs and baked, frozen pizza that was in many ways indistinguishable from cardboard.

There has never been a time when Speedway was awesome, but there have been times when it was acceptable. It was usually better in the suburbs, and worse in the cities (I've seen some weird shit happen at Speedway stores in cities, but they generally kept up with the chaos).

Overall, I'd give 5/10 -- it was often convenient and generally open 24/7, but at all times any of them could have used a lot of very obvious improvement.

5 years ago, 7/11 bought Speedway. They've subsequently managed to allow it to become even worse. Things are dirty, disorganized, clearly lacking any direction other than that which leads towards dilapidation, and the staff just doesn't appear to care about any of it.

Under 7/11's ownership, my buying habits have shifted from "Hey, there's a Speedway. Let's stop in and get a soda or some coffee, or maybe a sandwich" to "Oh look, it's a Speedway. Let's keep moving."

Their accomplishments here are very impressive.

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#29
> The company's forays into Internet marketing began with a bookselling partnership with Softbank and a book wholesaler in 1999; most books are paid for and picked up at local Seven-Elevens. The next year he engineered a $375 million partnership with NEC, Nomura Research, and Sony, called 7-dream.com, that promised to offer 100,000 products and services over the Internet.

I was living in Japan around 2008 and remember buying concert tickets and picking them up a conbini after purchasing online. I don't remember whether it was a 7 Eleven or Lawsons, but maybe it was a result of this.

Re: Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died

#30
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit out of date. These days basically any ATM allows foreign cards, just in time for Japan to finally switch to electronic payments in a big way (in particular PayPay).

Yes. The payments landscape has shifted pretty dramatically in Japan over just the past 3 years. It used to be that you had to worry about getting cash, IC cards, refilling said IC cards, going to an actual bank with your passport, etc. Now all you need is an iPhone (although I hear Android phones from outside Japan still can't use suica).

I was in Japan recently and did find that my non-Japanese Pixel phone wasn't allowed to use the mobile Suica app, even though the hardware supports it. Some nerds on XDA figured out the mechanism preventing it[0], and if you're rooted it seems like you can run a Magisk module to patch the region check in the PixelNfc component[1].

I guess it's down to licensing for the FeliCa smart card system or something? I will say, as a privacy person, I'm pretty jealous of the ubiquity of IC card payments there. You can buy the card at a kiosk with zero KYC and top it up with cash at the same kiosk. Since it's a stored-value system, it works offline, and you get the convenience of paying with a card with nearly all of the anonymity of paying with cash.

[0] https://xdaforums.com/t/global-pixel-device-unlock-felica-su...

[1] https://github.com/jjyao88/unlock-felica-pixel

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