China Garden (Iwaen) was established as a typical Chinese restaurant around the country between 1940 - 1955. This expansion coincided with Japan’s rapid economic growth mainly in department stores from Hakata to Sapporo with 48 restaurants at its peak. In the 1940’s Chinese restaurant were still rare, mostly in Osaka. Mr. Chen Jian a succesful Chinese chef from Osaka opened his first restaurant successfully in Daimaru’s Tokyo Station store. Chinese Garden is a veteran chain restaurant with a long history.
This venerable chain restaurant was inherited in 2000 by the third generation president Mr. Yasuo Watanabe (52). Almost 10 years after inheriting the restaurant chain he is drastically reducing the number of restaurants. Mr Watanabe jokingly says “Once the company decided to close the restaurants we became very skillful at closing them down, better than anyone else, I’m an expert at it. I can even give lectures on the subject!” However you can imagine the bitterness behind such laughter.
China Garden now comprises of four restaurants, the main one at Tameike (231square meters) , the others are at Kasumigaseki (330 square meters), Fukuoka (561 square meters) and Nagoya (231 square meters). All the restaurants are highly profitable earning approximately 300,000 Yen per square meter a month. Needless to say a very successful Chinese restaurant! The Kasumigaseki restaurant opened on the third floor of a new building in October 2007 was immediately successful and profitability is still climbing. The success comes from experiments at the Tameike Chinese Garden to change business conditions to recreate the business category profitably.

An initial experiment was to change the serving style of the Sichuan dishes from communal dishes to individually cooked and served dishes while keeping to the classical traditions, for example Tan Tan Chinese noodles that account for 33% of lunchtime orders. The second experiment was to increase the variety of alcoholic drinks served at night, offering a wide range of gin, vodka etc. based cocktails. The aim was to make it everyone’s local Chinese restaurant catering to a wide range of customers. They abolished the different prices for the various brands of wine and made them one price, resulting in little change in profit. The Kitchen Director Mr. Akiba offers low priced luxury dishes to nearby office workers to meet their desire for affordable luxury. China Garden’s focus is on providing easily affordable luxury not just in the food but also the surroundings. The key to their success is offering great satisfaction at a low price, to create repeat customers who come both for lunch and for dinner. This success is achieved through continual study of the customer and daily effort.