Basic Restaurant Operations in Kuala Lumpur: A Comparative Study of Sushi Zanmai and Hanatama

This article compares the basic restaurant operations of Sushi Zanmai and Hanatama in Kuala Lumpur. It explores their strategies, target market, and competition in the Japanese cuisine community. The article also discusses which restaurant has the advantage in this tough market competition.

Running head: BASIC RESTAURANT OPERATIONS
BASIC RESTAURANT OPERATIONS
Name of the student:
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Author Note:

1BASIC RESTAURANT OPERATIONS
The competition in the restaurant market in Malaysia is quite tough for the Japanese
restaurants. Various Japanese restaurant chains are entering the market of Malaysia which has
increased the competition level among the restaurants serving Japanese cuisine in Kuala
Lumpur Despite the fact that the Japanese cuisines are quickly winning the hearts and mouths
of Malaysian consumers, the competition level has been creating the situation tough for the
restaurants to maintain their uniqueness. Moreover, the restaurant chains have been affecting
the business of the individual restaurants of like Ippudo, Santouka and Bankara which shows
that the individual restaurants have to compete in various layers to attract their customers.
These factors are fast food, fast casual, family dining, casual dining, upscale casual dining,
fine dining, institutional and retail foodservice operations. In order to exploit the Japanese
cuisine community in Malaysia, these individual restaurants and the Japanese restaurant
chains need to differentiate themselves or they will not be able to survive. In Malaysian
market, both the selected restaurants provide good value for money which is important for
attracting more customers as well as retaining them (Agarwal and Dahm 2015). However,
these two restaurants have different style of operation and ownership. Therefore, their targets
are not the same. The only similarity between these restaurants are their offerings. Both of
these restaurants are specialised in the Japanese signature food sushi. This is the reason; they
are competing with other Japanese restaurant located in the same region.
The selected restaurants Sushi zanmai is a Chain restaurant and Hanatama is an
Independent restaurant. Both of these restaurants in Kuala lampur, demonstrates their red
ocean strategy. In this strategy the restaurants are indulged in head to head conflict with the
players of particular segment (Canny 2014). They compete with one another remaining in the
same market space within the boundary of same industry on principle of competitive
advantage. Sushi Zanmai owns extensive proficiency in the raw material selection and use
genuine ingredients in their offerings. This restaurant chain uses their original recipes as these

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cuisines are authentically Japanese. It sources components from the top suppliers round the
world as well as maintains the strict food safety as well as hygiene standard for safeguarding
the highest standard of quality. It focuses on the serving safe and high quality foods yet
affordable Sushi along with the Japanese dishes with a very reasonable price. Moreover, all
the strategies that this Japanese restaurant chain applies in gaining competitive advantage in
this tough market competition largely depend on their brad image.
Hanatama on the other hand does not have any popular brand image like Sushi
Zanmai but has built a strong place in the market of Kuala lumpur. Like all other individual
restaurants, located in the market of Malaysia, the space in the restaurant is much small but it
has a huge popularity among the students as it is located near the university. Beside their
affordable price that this restaurant offers, it has succeeded to maintain its consistency of
flavour as well as portioning. Hanatama offers a wide range of sushi diversities with a cheap
price at RM2.00 nett. Unlike others, this restaurant offers variety of sushi and sweets with
variation of price which proves it to be value of money to the students.
In fast food and fast casual segment cannot be applicable for these restaurants as they
offer full table facilities. In the segment of family dining, both these restaurants are applicable
to this category. Sushi Zanmai has accommodation of more than 100 people in their outlets
and Hanatama has 90. The factors are these restaurants do not provide alcohol and food is
served in platters. Here the factors are good choice of food, options for all ages, tasty as well
as easy to eat foods, comfortable, clean facilities, faster service and easy ordering facilities.
Sushi Zanmai also perfectly matched the factors of casual dining because the features
like moderately priced food in the casual atmosphere is present (Han, Bonn and Cho 2016). It
is also a part of wider chain. Hanatama can also be termed as casual dining as it is
independently owned and provides moderately priced food with table service. Sushi

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Zanmai is an example of upscale casual dining. The factors are the presence of a dining room
section separated from a lounge section with multiple screens and a wide range of Manu
options. The branches of Sushi Zanmai are usually found in the shopping districts or busy
places. This can attract the young professionals as well as millennials with urban ambiance
(Lee, Hallak and Sardeshmukh 2016).
Both of these restaurants do not have any particular dress code that the customers will
follow nor they have décor featuring high quality materials which can be found in the fine
dining restaurants (Wolf et al. 2015). Hanatama is a retail restaurant as it operates in the
Malaysian market independently. It does not have many branches but has gained popularity
among the young Malaysian students. On the either hand, Sushi Zanmai is also retail
foodservice organisation as it is a part of a restaurant chain operating in Malaysia. Both of
these restaurants are not institutional as they do not have any particular space or demography
to serve.
In competition, Sushi Zanmai has more advantage as it belongs to a restaurant chain
but recently it has been losing its popularity. The first and foremost factor is its taste (Läikkö-
Roto and Nevas 2014). It is a family dining restaurant where ether is a special important of
food serving, cleanliness and entire atmosphere are related. Japanese food items have
speciality which differentiates them from other cuisines but in Sushi Zanmai the quality has
become much poor according to the existing loyal customers themselves. It is a casual dining
restaurant which offers moderate price for the customers, but the price has been raised
recently which has reduced its popularity among the Malaysians. The restaurant uses the
leftover foods in their staff meal consumption which can be effective in the minds of the
employees as well as customers leading losing popularity. In addition to this, the employees
in Hanatama are employed permanently which is not the case in Sushi Zanmai. As retail

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foodservice organisation the services of the restaurant should have a consistency but the
employees’’ limited training or skills will affect the popularity in near future.

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