“If we’d done our bench presses and eaten gyūdon, we wouldn’t have lost the war”, declares Kentarō Ogawa. The business iconoclast is an avid gym-goer, with a particular fondness for the bench press. Zensho, the publicly listed company he founded, generates the bulk of its ¥1.1 trillion consolidated revenue from its flagship chain of gyūdon restaurants. The dish, a Japanese fast food staple, features fine slices of beef, typically cut from the short plate or brisket, simmered in a lightly sweetened soy-based broth with onions and served atop freshly steamed rice.

In light of his company’s success, Ogawa’s belief in the transformative power of a bowl of beef becomes more intelligible. Born in 1948—too late to rewrite the outcome of World War II with gyūdon—he channels his ambitions toward contemporary challenges. Each year, millions of preventable deaths are linked to malnutrition, which he attributes not to food scarcity but to its unequal distribution. By scaling the systems he developed to deliver gyūdon throughout Japan, the company has adopted a global mission: to eradicate hunger and poverty.

The sheer scale of the ambition may seem overwhelming, but for Ogawa, that is what makes it worthwhile. It aligns with Jim Collins and Jerry Porras’ notion of the Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal: a bold, clear, and seemingly unreachable long-term objective that matters not for its guaranteed success, but for the momentum it inspires. Even if Zensho never vanquishes world hunger, the effort itself generates urgency and innovation. This is fast food committed to a slow, deliberate mission.

Ogawa’s pursuit of a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal has proven tactically astute, positioning his gyūdon chain at the forefront of a competitive market. Three major players define the landscape. Yoshinoya, the oldest, was established in 1899 and operates over 1,200 outlets nationwide. Matsuya, founded in 1966, maintains a comparable footprint with around 1,250 branches. Leading the pack is Sukiya, the flagship of Zensho Holdings, which operates nearly 2,000 outlets across Japan. Despite being the newest of the three, founded in 1982, Sukiya stands as Japan’s largest gyūdon brand.

Each of the three competitors follows a distinct variation on a familiar operational blueprint—standardised processes, uniform layouts, and consistent ordering systems—whether the setting is a working-class suburb, a high-prestige commercial district, or a rural crossroads. Their neon signage, bearing brightly-hued brand colours and logos, punctuates the streetscape, flanking train stations, within shopping arcades, perched at intersections, or lining major thoroughfares.

Gyūdon shops, in all their ubiquity and standardisation, reflect a broader urban planning logic in Japan—one where essential services and conveniences are evenly distributed across neighbourhoods, not confined to affluent or central areas. This widespread spatial equity is one reason life in Tokyo, despite its vastness, feels orderly, safe, and consistently humane.

To understand how gyūdon evolved from fast food into a part of Japan’s egalitarian urban fabric, alongside public toilets, convenience stores, and transit access, we must look back to the 1860s. The decade marked the end of Japan’s long isolation and the dawn of the Meiji era, a transformative period of modernisation and changing dietary habits. Settle in—it’s a long story.