The Izakaya

Izakaya.

A style of eatery you see everywhere in Japan.

"Welcome!"

"This is an izakaya! Come have some ramen before you go!"

Lately, they've become common in Korea too — common enough that people list them without a second thought when deciding where to eat.

"An izakaya?"

"What kind of izakaya is this supposed to be…"

"And students are running it!"

But nobody expects one at a university festival. Izakayas are professional restaurants, after all.

Thwack!

And yet here it was. Red awnings, Japanese-style lanterns hanging overhead — the place really was an izakaya. Even the menu looked the part.

A server set a bowl of ramen down on a customer's table.

"Oh~ That's actual ramen."

"You can smell it from here!"

"Taste is what matters, though."

Slurp~! The customer's face lit up as he swallowed the noodles. Evidence more convincing than anything else.

Gulp.

Passersby watched. One person drifted over, then another, and before long a long line had formed in front of the izakaya.

"See? I told you it was nothing special."

"Yeah."

"How hard is it to make ramen, really?"

"So easy I almost feel guilty."

"Ahem!"

They'd had only a single day. Club members had scrambled all over campus and somehow pulled it off — dressing the booth up like a proper izakaya. It was still just a festival stall with the right atmosphere, but the customers were satisfied.

And the taste.

It rivaled any decent izakaya — any ramen shop, even. At least in Korea, he was sure of that.

Even so, Sora sat there with her lower lip stuck out. On top of still refusing to accept yesterday's wager—

"Let's be real. This is a scam."

"What part?"

"You're selling instant ramen and calling it ramen!"

Ramen. True enough, it wasn't a dish you whipped up casually. What made it possible was—

Instant noodles.

Packet ramen. Follow the cooking instructions on the back, and you were done.

"Enjoy your meal~!"

"It was so good!"

"Thank you."

"Is there some secret recipe? This doesn't taste like student cooking."

"The secret is a secret."

"Of course a real restaurant has secrets…"

Guaranteed flavor. No wonder customers walked out murmuring in admiration.

So what? As long as it tastes good.

And it did taste good. Japanese instant ramen was absurdly high quality — good enough to slap around ninety-five percent of Korean ramen shops. Especially once you piled on the toppings properly.

Chop! Chop! Chop!

Green onions. Wood ear mushrooms. Even pan-seared frozen pork slices laid on top. Visually, it was a perfect bowl of ramen.

"Looks convincing enough."

"Only on the outside."

"Tastes convincing too, doesn't it?"

"W-well, yes, but…"

Discontent. Sora clearly hated it — as if he'd cheated her somehow.

There's no such thing as cheating in a real fight.

The restaurant business was about making money. Stay just barely on the right side of laws and regulations, and you were fine.

"Still, instant noodles are a bit much."

"So Kimbap Heaven can boil up Shin Ramyun and that's fine, but this isn't?"

"…"

"Right?"

Plenty of places did exactly that. A huge number of restaurants reprocessed ready-made products and sold them. Some customers thought it was delicious. Others thought it was lazy.

"If you'd ordered this ramen as a regular customer, would you have thought it tasted bad?"

"It's good."

"You want some?"

"I'm hungry."

She felt betrayed — even though betrayal was practically her daily routine.

In the end, taste is all that matters.

A chef might disagree. But he was a private-equity-bred operator. He pushed operational efficiency to the absolute limit — and taste was part of that efficiency.

Thwack!

They were using real fresh noodles for the base. Seasonings rounded out the flavor. That held the ramen together. The other dishes, built from commercial products, looked just as convincing.

The "izakaya" was complete.

Because everything used commercial products, the cooking methods were dead simple.

Sizzle…!

Mentaiko. Roughly grill it, slice it, done.

Sizzle…!

Gyoza. No slicing required.

Bubble-bubble!

Oden nabe. Green onions, crown daisy, and chili peppers made it the most bothersome of the lot.

"It's just oden soup rebranded as oden nabe, and the price doubles."

"Making money is ridiculously easy."

"Easy? You really think so?"

"Ugh…"

Simple as could be — and yet they charged higher prices. Nobody complained.

That's business.

Because it was an izakaya. The public happily paid for things wrapped in fantasy.

"Fake from top to bottom."

"You really don't want to admit it, do you."

"Your business sense is incredible, though."

"Damn right."

Without properly calculating costs and returns, the restaurant industry was still an industry that made money that way.

There's barely any difference, honestly.

Same effort. Naturally, you'd rather earn more. Drawing up the plan and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠executing it — that was a CEO's job.

"Business is booming! I already sent people to the supermarket because I was worried we'd run out of stock. It's selling way better than expected."

"Of course it is. Whose brain do you think this came out of?"

"But what about the alcohol?"

"Hmm."

Hye-ri came rushing over to report. Customers had flooded in the moment they opened — packed, exactly as planned. Last year they'd focused on a single steak. This year, they'd opened a proper restaurant.

A restaurant.

An izakaya wasn't just any restaurant. The real main attraction wasn't the food — it was the drinks. The menu might look like a snack bar's, but everyone in Korea knew the saying: when you go to an izakaya, you drink highballs.

"There's no Suntory anywhere. We checked every big supermarket."

"That can happen."

"What do you mean 'that can happen'! We have to sell highballs — we're an izakaya!"

That was why he'd chosen the bar concept in the first place. The food mattered, but izakayas were good places to drink.

Highballs sell like crazy.

Suntory's Kakubin was especially famous. The image marketing in Korea was excellent. In Japan it was cheap liquor, comparable to soju — and people had no idea the markup was four times the cost.

"The margin's that high?"

"Yep."

"Wow, four times is a little…"

"You're as shameless as your senior."

"I'd call it a successful case study in premium marketing."

And people ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still bought it. Why pay the rip-off price? Because nobody was ever truly a bystander to that kind of thing.

That's the restaurant business.

The essence of food service. How well you could pull off the con. Or rather — as long as the customer left happy, everything was fine.

"I get that, but… an izakaya without highballs just isn't an izakaya, right?"

"True."

"We have to start selling alcohol at three. What do we do?"

They needed it for that reason alone. An izakaya wasn't complete without drinks.

Alcohol is also where the biggest margins hide.

University festival. Everyone came to drink. Leaving the booze out would be a crying shame.

"It's fine."

"It is not fine. It's almost three."

"It'll be here soon."

"What will?"

The whole izakaya concept could collapse. Hye-ri's worry was entirely justified.

1. Exploit the commercial district.

2. Maximize margins.

3. Premium marketing.

Success came down to how well you used those three. And the hidden fourth—

Thud!

They were starting to arrive. Suspicious-looking delivery packages stacked up in front of their izakaya booth.

"Lee Chanuk~!"

"Yeah, that's me."

"You're the recipient, correct? I'll need you to confirm."

He'd ordered them himself. People commonly assumed alcohol couldn't be delivered.

That's front-of-house common sense.

Anyone in the restaurant business needed to understand the back of the house. That was where the real margins lived.

ETSD.

The club that had held the number-one sales spot at the Hankuk University festival every single year.

"Two seafood pancakes!"

"One cheese kimchi pancake!"

"Hey, when does the complimentary oden soup come out?!"

The secret was the seafood pancake — a recipe left by their seniors, plus hard-won know-how on cutting costs. People praised it as restaurant-quality. They'd even built up a solid base of regulars.

"That was great."

"Pretty good for students~."

"Thank you! Take care!"

"I heard that place over there is doing an izakaya?"

"Ah~ We should've gone there."

"…"

An ecosystem destroyer had arrived. For the second year running, they were pulling some outrageous stunt.

How the hell is it an izakaya!

This wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a food alley. It was a student festival — the kind every university held. The bar couldn't be that high. You weren't putting out a single crafted masterpiece like a cooking workshop.

"You make the rounds?"

"Yeah."

"Any booths that could actually compete…"

"None! Just those bastards."

Hankuk University had them too — Hotel Culinary Arts, Food and Nutrition, and so on. Departments full of people who ought to know how to cook. Count the clubs and there were even more students who'd set foot in a chef's domain.

Only those guys are weird.

But business was different. Cooking efficiency, cost-of-goods management, and the rest. Fail to mind those and you couldn't generate sales. That was why ETSD had stayed number one. Selling decent food cheap was never easy.

"Whoa… look at that line."

"Already that long."

"SNS is going crazy too. The place that sold cube steaks last year opened an izakaya."

Actually delicious food at low prices — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wrapped in the upscale concept of an izakaya, no less.

These crazy bastards…

He couldn't even imagine what they'd done. The scale was on another level entirely. Beating opponents like that the normal way was impossible.

And yet Yujun was certain of their victory.

"They don't have alcohol!"

"You sure?"

"A hundred percent. If this is wrong, I'm going after Ji-hye for the bad intel."

It all came down to the drinks. A bar existed to sell alcohol. Customers came to drink.

And the margins are the fattest there.

His girlfriend Juha arrived with glorious news. The stock club kids had failed to secure any Suntory — because ETSD had cornered the supply. An izakaya that couldn't sell highballs was kimbap without danmuji, a fish-shaped bun without the red bean paste.

"Should we run a highball promo?"

"I already prepped the banners and flyers. Just put them up and hand them out."

"That's my girl!"

And they had the goods. They'd redirect every customer disappointed by a highball-less izakaya. The advertising would smooth the process. They thought they were about to fire the opening shot of their revenge.

"Whoa, an izakaya!"

"I heard they're selling Suntory highballs over there too?"

"???"

There was no stopping him.