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Japan’s amazing egg sandwiches sold from self-serve roadside fridges have an inspiring backstory

Casey Baseel Oct 3, 2024
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The Overflowing Egg Sandwich filled our stomach and our heart.

Egg sandwiches are a big deal in Japan, both a mainstay at convenience stores and a menu all-star at cafes and dedicated sandwich shops. When our most recent egg sandwich craving hit, however, we headed for a row of sheds by the side of the road in the town of Atsugi in Kanagawa Prfecture, Tokyo’s neighbor to the south.

Each of these sheds contains a refrigerator, and each of those refrigerators is for egg sandwiches from a company called Yamamotoya. Yamamotoya operates the fridges as unmanned sandwich sales points, basically vending machines but with payment on the honor system. When we rolled up a little before 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon, though, there were plenty of people who’d been drawn to this unmanned egg sandwich spot.

Actually, we’d initially arrived earlier in the day, a little after 1 p.m., only to find every single fridge sold out. Thankfully, Yamamotoya posts a restocking schedule at the site, and so we knew that the next batch of egg sandwiches was coming in at 3:30. Of course, so did all the other people who we were now waiting together with.

▼ The posted schedule showed stocking times of 6, 9, and 11 a.m. and 1, 3:30, and 5 p.m.

While it’s pretty common to see lines in front of popular big-city restaurants in Japan, it’s a much rarer phenomenon to see a line for a vending machine way out in the suburbs like this, but lines frequently form at Yamamotoya’s fridges, and that reputation is what had drawn us out here to try them for ourselves. Right on time, at 3:30, Yamamotoya’s deliver staff came out from the adjacent office/workshop, and to speed up the process directly sold sandwiches to everyone who was waiting before stocking the fridges.

Even then it still took about 10 minutes for us to get up to the front of the line, but we finally had it: the locally legendary Yamamotoya Overflowing Egg Sandwich!

Popular as the sandwiches are, they’re priced at just 300-yen (US$2.15). That price also belies the generous amount of egg they’re stuffed with. Yamamotoya isn’t kidding when they say these things are “overflowing.”

Now, even though Japan calls them “egg sandwiches,” you could argue that “egg salad sandwiches” would be the more accurate term, since the eggs are mixed with mayo. As a matter of fact, some places use a mixture that’s so heavy on the mayo that the eggs really take a secondary role. Not Yamamotoya, though – their egg sandwiches let the egg shine. Yeah, there’s mayo in there too, but the strongest impression on your taste buds, for the entire flavor profile, is the rich eggs.

We were so satisfied that we decided to go back a couple days later for another Yamamotoya egg sandwich, this time stopping by on weekday shortly after noon, and this time there were sandwiches in the fridges.

▼ Just grab a sandwich and put your 300 yen in the box next to the fridge to pay.

Aside from the outstanding taste and unique sales method, there’s something else that impressed us about Yamamotoya. According to the sticker on the sandwich’s wrapping, they’ve been in business for 50 years! So after polishing off our second egg sandwich, we decided to pay a visit to their office and talk with company president Sachiko Yamamoto.

Yamamoto told us that Yamamotoya actually isn’t her first business venture, and she’d previously run a shop that sold various foodstuffs. “The business wasn’t doing well, though, and we had to shut it down,” she explains. “But our egg sandwiches were popular, so I thought I wanted to try doing something else with them, and that’s how Yamamooya got started.”

“No matter what happens to you in life, all those things are opportunities,” Yamamoto cheerfully asserts. “So when we shut down the store, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but I said ‘OK, here comes another opportunity! Let’s do it!’ And we were lucky enough that a lot of people liked what we did next, and before I realized it, we’d been doing it for 50 years…Life gives you more opportunities than people expect, and it’s important to grab hold of them. When we were starting Yamamotoya, I was just doing all I could to grab hold of one, so I didn’t feel scared or worried at all!”

And before we left, Yamamoto had some encouraging words for us.

**“So when you see an opportunity, don’t you hesitate. Reach out and grab it, before that opportunity gets bashful and goes and hides someplace. Even if you can only gra a piece of it, something good will definitely happen. And even then, if things start to feel like more than you can bear, just come see me here again. I’ll make you some egg sandwiches to cheer you up.”

Thanks, Ms. Yamamoto! It’s not everyday that our lunch comes with a side order or inspirational motivation, but we’ll keep your words in our heart, just like you keep Yamamotoya’s sandwiches in those roadside fridges.

Location information
Yamamotoya Vending Machines / ヤマモトヤ自販機
Address: Kanagawa-ken, Atsugi-shi, Kamiogino 1270-2
神奈川県厚木市上荻野１２７０−２
In operation 24 hours a day

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