Tourism Don Quijote opens new tourist-focused vending machine shop in Shibuya

Japanese retailer Don Quijote is stepping up its appeal to international visitors by launching its first store stocked entirely with vending machines. The store will offer everything from instant ramen to personalised name stamps.


The compact 60-square-metre shop houses 13 vending machines in Tokyo's bustling Shibuya district. Situated on the first floor of a multi-use building, it aims to draw in guests from the hotel upstairs and shoppers from a full-size Don Quijote discount store on the same floor. One of the machines sells ramen from the popular Ichiran chain for 500 yen ($3.30). Customers can enhance their meals by purchasing toppings such as chashu pork belly, flavoured soft-boiled eggs, and pickled ginger from another machine before dining inside the store.

The vending machine from Yamazaki Baking sells various sandwich choices, from classic ham and egg to new twists, such as Taiwan sweet potato with red bean paste and milk tea-flavoured whipped cream, all priced at 200 yen. Another machine specialises in gummy candies with Japanese region-specific flavours, such as citrus fruits from Ehime prefecture and watermelon from Kumamoto prefecture.

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Paywall alert:

As perhaps a sign of the times, about a third of a bookshop in a shopping centre near me has been replaced with an area containing at least a hundred vending machines selling toys in capsules. I imagine there is high profitability per unit space for these machines.

Book stores are under threat. Only the chains and megastores will survive.

The number of physical bookstores near where I live are almost zero. There's only one that I know of.