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Toshifumi Suzuki, founder of Seven-Eleven Japan, has died
43 points by L_Rahman 6 hours ago | 24 comments
firefax 2 hours ago
I ate a lot 7/11 onigiri as a poor grad student exploring Tokyo on a long layover once... they're truly wonderful little stores. (They also are one of the few places you can use an ATM, very useful given how cash based Japan is)

He can be proud of the legacy he built, which is something many American founders cannot say with a straight face.

Rest in power sir.

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decimalenough 18 minutes ago
This is a bit out of date. These days basically any ATM allows foreign cards, just in time for Japan to finally switch to electronic payments in a big way (in particular PayPay).
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ak217 2 minutes ago
Yes. The payments landscape has shifted pretty dramatically in Japan over just the past 3 years. It used to be that you had to worry about getting cash, IC cards, refilling said IC cards, going to an actual bank with your passport, etc. Now all you need is an iPhone (although I hear Android phones from outside Japan still can't use suica).
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Larrikin 2 minutes ago
Most let you use them, the post office and 7-11 had the lowest fees
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RigelKentaurus 2 hours ago
On our last couple of Japan trips, we would walk into 7/11s for an inexpensive coffee, an egg or fruit sandwich, and also do some treasure-hunting for co-branded items with Muji/Uniqlo or others. It became a short and meaningful part of our routine. We loved the convenient locations and fantastic service at all their stores. Well done, Suzuki-san!
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arjie 29 minutes ago
The local stores in Japan and Taiwan are really nice. 7/11 and Family Mart are these pleasant places where you can see schoolchildren sitting chatting and eating. That’s not something you’d see in San Francisco.

You’ll see adults with children sometimes at Whole Foods, which is nice, but unattended children not so much.

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jmward01 2 hours ago
Having spent a significant amount of time in Japan, 7/11 there is an experience the rest of the world needs to know.
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satvikpendem 2 hours ago
I wonder how 7/11 in the US will change now that the Japanese version bought out the US version. Will we actually have hot and prepared food like Japan? I doubt it, seems the supply chain infrastructure just isn't there.
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AlexAplin 3 minutes ago
Besides the context in the other comments, they pushed the Japanese fresh food angle in a media blitz pretty hard last year (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/business/7-eleven-ceo-ste...). Egg sandwiches seem to be the most reliably available in the contiguous states, but you can also spot egg rolls and onigiri. They're also now bracing to close hundreds of stores and reopen a fraction of that number to match the new model: https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2026/04/17/7-eleven...
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Larrikin 59 minutes ago
It's been fully owned by the Japanese company for over 20 years
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mgiampapa 2 hours ago
7/11 Japan has been running the stores in Hawaii for ages, just look there.
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m0llusk 31 minutes ago
The waste generated is also a major challenge. Having fresh food always ready means trashing a lot of meals. In the US there are networks of food banks and such, but it can still be difficult to keep up with the flow of unpurchased food that is no longer fresh.
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ssl-3 20 minutes ago
How is this waste dealt with in Japan? Why can't whatever-that-is be implemented in the US?
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m463 50 minutes ago
I was in 7/11 in the US and they sell egg sandwiches.

coincidence?

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thr1owaway9621 11 minutes ago
Japanese 7-11 is a fascinating story.

Here is decent video on Youtube that goes into the history of the company, and why 7-11s are so different in the US and Japan (tldr: it's the core culture/infrastructure differences):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3EH4VmxMAo

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L_Rahman 6 hours ago
I learned today that 7/11 in Japan wasn't a pure licensing play but a technology enabled business model disruption of large grocery stores and mom-and-pop convenience stores. The launch of 7/11 Japan introduced: franchising, JIT inventory management, and centralized POS terminals to the Japanese retail market. The linked article explains this in more detail.
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ranger_danger 2 hours ago
Here's a fascinating video I enjoyed that explains how their business model worked (only) in Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3EH4VmxMAo
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dreamcompiler 34 minutes ago
I almost never go to a 7/11 in the US but every time I go to Japan I visit a 7/11 at least once a day. No matter where you are in Japan there's likely a 7/11 within walking distance and besides the usual assortment of drinks and snacks you can get quick full meals there of high quality.

https://thisis-japan.com/7-eleven-japan-guide-2025/

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dboreham 2 hours ago
Wondering if there's a better reference article for this. The current link goes to a page with so many adverts that I saw no actual content on my phone screen.
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ranger_danger 2 hours ago
No ads here on desktop or mobile with ublock origin.
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satvikpendem 2 hours ago
The fact that people in the current year still don't use ad blockers baffles me. Even on mobile, use Firefox with uBlock Origin and/or DNS66 or AdAway for OS wide blocking, or even just set dns.adguard-dns.com in your phone DNS settings.
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ssl-3 27 minutes ago
It is bizarre, isn't it? My web experience has been broadly cleansed of ads for about as long as we've had a web to experience.

These days, Firefox on Android indeed works great, and so does uBlock Origin. It's a superb combination on the desktop, and also on my pocket supercomputer.

On iOS, I browse with Safari and the free AdGuard extension (from the app store) does quite well.

These mobile browsers even work well for watching videos on Youtube without inserted ads.

They accomplish this cleansing at the cost of at most a few minutes of my time to set them up when a new device comes into the mix. It's a fantastic bargain.

People have choices, and I don't know why anyone would choose to see ads.

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hnlmorg 2 hours ago
Thanks for letting us know your ad blocker blocks ads. We wouldn’t have figured out by ourselves. /s
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ChrisArchitect 48 minutes ago
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