Meet Marugame. Japan’s favourite hand-made udon kitchen.

There is growing demand for Japanese cuisine amongst UK consumers. Our food is fresh, cooked to order in view of the customer and our menu combines authentic dishes with others more familiar to the wider audience. We are focused on achieving our mission of “Udon for Everyone”.

Udon in Japan is for all; and its broad appeal is growing within the UK across all demographics; from rich to poor, young to old, we are committed to bring this daily ritual to all.

Starting in mid-2021 we now have 4 Central London stores trading at high volumes. Our pipeline for 2022 is taking shape with further openings confirmed at Oxford Circus and a major rail station. By the end of 2022 we will be operating 12 UK restaurants with ambitious plans each year thereafter to take us to 200 restaurants across the UK and Europe; a mix of company operated and franchise locations. 

An established global presence

The founder of Marugame (and the Toridoll group) Awata-san started the first Marugame Udon restaurant 20 years ago. His inspiration came from the traditional udon kitchens in the city of Sanuki, in the Kagawa prefecture, a place close to his heart.

It took Awata-san time and effort to build Marugame into the loved brand it is nowadays, with a global presence and raving fans from Tokyo to Texas!

In the UK and Europe Marugame Udon Europe Ltd is a joint venture between Toridoll and Capdesia. Toridoll provide unrivalled expertise in Japanese cuisine and the Marugame brand; Capdesia provide hospitality expertise in UK and European markets.

• 850 Marugame restaurants in Japan
• 1250 Marugame restaurants globally
• 14th most loved brand in Japan (one position above the iPhone)

Capability and resource

The Marugame Udon Europe team has been in place since 2020, with growth and scale central to the foundations of the business. UK hospitality expertise, high-volume quality operations, brand roll out and international growth is central to our skill set.

Marugame has been built with the infrastructure to “take us to 200”. We have invested heavily in building an integrated systems platform enabling us to operate multiple restaurants efficiently and effectively. For example, we measure our queue time and movement down the counter through ‘Eyezilla’ movement cameras.

Our Marugame Club is a powerful single customer view giving us full customer history allowing us to drive behaviour and affect frequency.

We operate a paperless environment; with electronic operational checklists, health and safety systems, online ordering, customer feedback, training and development, recruitment applicant tracking systems, allergens, labour management, single customer view, loyalty club, business tracking and intelligence.

As a start-up with no established ways of working we have been able to build sustainable ways of working into the Marugame operation from the outset. We may be currently small in the UK, but we are built with strong and sturdy foundations that you can rely upon.