Name: Behind the Counter at a Japanese Mom and Daughter Teishoku Restaurant
Uploaded: 2026-01-17T18:29:47.000Z
Duration: 12 min 44 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

This is behind the counter at a local Japanese teishoku restaurant run by a mother and daughter.

Present continuous

So today I'm going deep into the kitchen at Chifuku Shokudo, a family owned restaurant in Tokyo's Kichijoji area, offering Teishoku Japanese set meals, serving around 150 a day.

Generally considered as an everyday Japanese home cooked meal, it's balanced, affordable, and

typically includes a main dish such as grilled fish, chicken or pork with rice, miso soup and even pickles.

With such variety, this shop has become a good to lunch choice for many Japanese in the neighborhood.

So much so that it always has a line of customers before the shop opens.

And from this morning, I'm gonna try to find out how this mother and daughter team have created such a local following.

Oh, and her mother who she's partnered with to run the restaurant.

Are you always with your mom in the morning?

They've been running the shop together for five years now.

Apparently, Natsumi san always had a passion to start her own restaurant.

And when she shared the idea, her mother loved it and wanted to help despite not having any experience.

Her entrepreneurial spirit must have rubbed off on her daughter.

So where did the name of the restaurant come from?

One of the first things she does in the morning is prepares her menu board.

Before this, Natsumi san worked as a menu developer for cafes in Motsando, Akasaka and Kichijoji.

She now brings that experience into her own shop where she can freely create dishes exactly the way she wants, using the freshest ingredients possible.

This freedom is why her menu changes daily and why so many of her regulars come several times a week.

Natsumi San says that growing up, her mom was always cooking and that her family loved food.

Many of her fondest memories come from sitting around the dining table with her family, talking and laughing together over her mom's home cooked meals.

Those moments stayed with her quietly, shaping the way she sees food and the way she wants people to feel when they eat eat at her restaurant.

She says that she actually grew up in Ogikubo and mostly attended school there.

She says that they all often go out drinking together to celebrate the holidays.

And when the store reaches their sales Goals.

Daishi is cutting their Tonkatsu pork slices for the shop's daily set meal Special.

Natsumi san's mom originally grew up in Tokyo and apparently kind of had a wild spirit in her younger days.

But after giving birth to two daughters, she made the quiet decision to cook for her family every day so that they could feel the warmth and security from homemade meals.

It wasn't easy at first, as she had to teach herself through books and old culinary magazines.

But over time and with perseverance, she slowly improved, ultimately instilling her discovered love for cooking in her daughter.

She adds that they've always shared a close relationship and nothing has ever truly come between them.

But when they first opened the restaurant and it was just the same two of them, their strong passion and individual vision often led to arguments.

Over time, though, they learned to work with each other.

And as they increase staff, now with 20 people, their working relationship has softened and they've been able to find a healthy balance.

She adds that she can only go twice a month, though.

Now she heads to their second shop, which is not too far away.

Natsumi san, how's it been working with your mother?

She says that even at her mother's age, she's more energetic than anyone at the shop.

She told me that she wants to do hot yoga.

She says her father used to play the trumpet, but her mother, sister, and

That's their second shop, where they sell bento boxes, fresh vegetables, and

which also serves as their central kitchen.

Natsumi san and her mother are both deeply grateful for having such hardworking staff who are passionate and show up every day with a desire to improve, especially in Tokyo's highly competitive food industry, where service and quality are paramount.

It's one of the reasons why their shop continues to grow and why they have such a strong local customer base.

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Behind the Counter at a Japanese Mom and Daughter Teishoku Restaurant

apparently

awesome

experience

perseverance