Conveyor Belt Sushi Restaurant Dos And Don'ts

If you've ever been inside a factory, you'll know that conveyor belts are a key part of most assembly lines. Whether it's car parts, food items, toys, or beauty products, conveyor systems help to seamlessly transport materials from one stage of production to another with ease. They prevent workers from getting in each other's way, while allowing each to focus on tasks without distraction. To Yoshiaki Shiraishi, an entrepreneur and former sushi chef, conveyor belts made perfect sense — not for sushi factories, but for sushi restaurants.

In the late 1950s, after visiting a brewery that used conveyor belts to bottle beer, Shiraishi opened the first sushi conveyor belt shop in Osaka, Japan. The system, called kaitenzushi, was simple: Chefs would plate up sushi before placing it on a conveyor belt that ran through the restaurant. Customers selected their plates from the conveyor belt themselves, reducing the need for high amounts of staff. The system was efficient, cost effective, and an undeniable hit.

Shiraishi's creation has since inspired thousands of copycats. In 2021, the Japanese conveyor belt sushi market was valued at ¥700 billion (which is around $3.6 billion USD). The system is also popular outside of Japan. The U.S., for example, is home to more than 200 conveyor belt sushi restaurants.

Conveyor belt restaurants offer a fun, easy dining experience, but there are a few things to consider before you sit down to eat. Here are some of our top conveyor belt sushi dos and don'ts.

In 2023, a TikTok trend dubbed "sushi terrorism" rocked the conveyor belt sushi industry. In a handful of viral videos, restaurant-goers were seen poking sushi as it rotated around the restaurant on the conveyor belt. In one particularly controversial video, one diner even licked the top of a soy sauce bottle. This was especially alarming because in Japanese restaurants, soy sauce is often communal and placed on tables to share, like salt and pepper, for example.

The videos prompted backlash from many social media users, who expressed concern that the behavior of a few TikTokers would harm the entire kaitenzushi industry. Their concerns were valid; some restaurants have now stopped using conveyor belts due to the threat of unhygienic behaviors from some diners. So, for the future of this enjoyable dining experience and for the sake of all of your fellow diners, one of the golden rules of visiting a conveyor belt sushi restaurant is to make sure you maintain hygienic and respectful behavior at all times.

For example, before you start taking plates from the conveyor belt, ensure your hands are clean by washing them with soap or using hand sanitizer. Do not touch any sushi unless you plan to eat it yourself and you should also avoid touching the conveyor belt, too. It (should) go without saying, but do not lick anything that isn't your own sushi on your own plate.

Once you have laid hands on a plate, it is yours to enjoy. This means you should not touch any plate on the conveyor belt unless you are planning to pick it up and eat what is on top of it. If you touch a plate and do not take it, this is often considered rude and unsanitary. It could anger the diners around you, as well as the sushi chefs.

To reduce the chance of accidentally touching a plate you didn't actually want, it is important to understand what each item of sushi is and how much it costs before you start grabbing food. Most restaurants will have instructions on conveyor belt etiquette displayed clearly for you to read before you tuck in. Information on the pricing system should also be available, as this varies from restaurant to restaurant. Some conveyor belt restaurants price each dish the same, while others use a plate color-coding system. Familiarizing yourself with the restaurant's code of conduct and pricing system will ultimately reduce the risk of you making a mistake and picking up the wrong plate, saving you a lot of hassle in the long run.

When you're dining at a sushi conveyor belt restaurant, it's important to learn how to pick up plates correctly to avoid causing a mess or missing the piece of sushi you really wanted as it moves past you. In general, sushi plates tend to rotate slowly around most conveyor belt restaurants, which gives you just enough time to pick up your desired plate as it moves past. The average conveyor belt pace is around 4 centimeters per second, but some will move a little faster than this, while others will move a little slower. In some restaurants, plates will be open, while others will choose to cover them with plastic domes for hygiene reasons.

The plates with plastic dome coverings — like those seen in Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, which has a number of locations across the U.S. — are among the trickiest to pick up quickly, but only until you know how. The trick? Tilt the plate up before you remove it to pop open the plastic covering.

After you have chosen your sushi dish and successfully picked it up from the conveyor belt, it's time to tuck in. One of the best condiments to pair it with is soy sauce, which is a salty, umami-rich staple in Japanese cuisine, and is often served with everything from ramen to sushi. When used correctly, soy sauce will enhance the overall flavor of most types of sushi, but there are a few things to keep in mind before you start dipping.

While it's tempting to immediately start rolling your piece of sushi around in soy sauce to get the most amount possible, if you want to get the best flavor, it's a good idea to show a little restraint. Soy sauce has a strong flavor that can easily overpower the delicate flavors in sushi. Too much can ruin the experience, but a little maximizes the overall taste, so take care to get the balance just right.

Another tip: When you do dip your sushi into soy sauce, don't dip the rice side, as rice absorbs sauce extremely quickly. This may not only result in too much soy sauce, but your carefully prepared sushi may begin to fall apart, causing a mess and, again, negatively impacting the overall flavor and experience. And finally, if your chosen sushi plate already has sauce on it, try to avoid adding any more to it, as this may interfere with the intended flavor and texture of the dish.

Sushi conveyor belt restaurants, of course, work a little differently than most Westernized restaurants. While the latter often relies on waiters who will often come to the table to take your order before presenting you with a bill at the end of the meal, sushi conveyor belt restaurants rely on empty plates to calculate the total payment.

This means that you should always keep hold of your plates by stacking them next to you until it's time to pay (and never be tempted to place them back on the conveyor belt, which is a big no-no in sushi restaurants). When you're ready to settle up, simply signal to a server that you want to leave.

Your server will total up your bill by counting all of the plates at your table. In some restaurants, servers will give you a ticket listing everything you've eaten, which you must take to the cashier stand to make your final payment.

One of the best parts about visiting a conveyor belt sushi restaurant is the experience of getting to pick dishes as they whiz past you on the conveyor belt. This way, you get to try dishes you might not usually order from a menu and perhaps discover new favorites. But that said, if you can't see something you like the look of, most conveyor belt restaurants will also let you order from the menu, too.

Some restaurants will have a tablet next to the tables to allow you to order digitally, while others will use a more old-fashioned paper-based system. In some restaurants, you can also place your order directly with the chef.

Usually, the food you have ordered will be sent directly to your table via the conveyor belt. This is also something to keep in mind when you're selecting random dishes as they move past you. Be careful not to pick up a plate that someone else has specifically ordered to their table.

Alongside soy sauce, most conveyor belt sushi restaurants will offer pickled ginger (also known as gari) for free. This condiment is exactly what it sounds like: It is thinly-sliced ginger that has been marinated in an acidic solution, usually made with vinegar (also known as pickling). Because of this, pickled ginger has a slightly acidic taste. It's also usually marinated with sugar, which helps to add a little sweetness to the mix.

Pickled ginger is a flavorful and pleasant-tasting staple of Japanese cuisine, but while it's served with sushi, it is not for actually placing on top of your fish or rolls. Instead, it is designed to be a refresher between courses.

You should eat a little pickled ginger between each plate, which helps to cleanse your palate. This is because some flavors, like strong fishy flavors or spicy notes, can linger in the mouth, which alters the flavor of the next dish you try. Essentially, eating pickled ginger helps to preserve the delicate and unique flavor of each of the sushi dishes you pull off the conveyor belt.

Alongside soy sauce and pickled ginger, another condiment that is usually offered for free in most Japanese restaurants – including sushi conveyor belt restaurants — is wasabi. Known for its iconic green color, wasabi is an incredibly pungent and spicy dip made from the brassicaceae family of plants. Real wasabi is hard to obtain because it only grows in a handful of places around the world, so the "wasabi" you see in sushi restaurants is often just horseradish, but it still has that signature strong flavor because it's made from the same family of plants.

The best way to enjoy wasabi is to dab just a tiny bit on to your sushi (especially if you're trying it for the first time) and keep it away from soy sauce. This is because soy sauce has its own strong flavor profile, which will interfere with the flavors of the wasabi and alter the overall tasting experience.

To ensure you do not accidentally mix soy sauce and wasabi together, there are a few options. First, if you have more than one piece of sushi, you can try soy sauce on one and wasabi on the other. If you want to eat everything in one go, try adding soy sauce to one side of the sushi roll and wasabi to the other. Just remember: With wasabi, a little goes a very long way.

Sushi is one of those foods that is best eaten as fresh as possible, preferably directly after preparation to preserve flavor and texture (which means you should gobble it down as soon as you've taken it off the conveyor belt). If the piece of sushi is small enough (like nigiri, for example, which is always bite-sized) you should aim to eat the whole thing in one bite to ensure all of the flavors mingle in your mouth at the same time. That said, some pieces of sushi are too big for one mouthful, so it's no big deal if you need to take a few more bites. Just whatever you do, don't eat your sushi and then immediately swallow it down, as you won't give your palate enough time to absorb all of the unique flavors that sushi has to offer.

Avocado sushi rolls, for example, are a popular type of vegan sushi offered at a number of Japanese restaurants. They are incredibly simple, but they offer a whole host of flavors and textures wrapped up in one small roll. There's the creamy, velvety, slightly nutty avocado, the sweet sushi rice, and the salty soy sauce (if you choose to dip). A spicy tuna roll offers a different flavor profile, with spicy mayonnaise and raw tuna often mixed together with sweet rice. Chew as slowly as you can to give yourself the best overall sushi experience, savoring all of the textures and flavors of your chosen dishes.

As with many Asian cuisines, sushi is traditionally eaten with chopsticks. But before you pick them up and start eating, there are a few etiquette rules you need to be aware of first.

One of the most important things to know is that rubbing your chopsticks together is actually considered rude. This is because it is traditionally done to remove splinters from the wood, so if you do it in a sushi restaurant, particularly one in Japan, the servers or chefs may see it as a sign that you believe the chopsticks are of low-quality.

To avoid causing offense or upset, you should also learn how to hold the chopsticks correctly when eating, avoid pointing or gesturing at someone with them, and if there is one available, use a rest to place your chopsticks when you're not using them. Alternatively, if there is no available rest, you can place them parallel on a soy sauce dish.

If you're not confident in your chopstick abilities, you can eat your sushi with a fork (but you will likely need to ask your server for one, as there is unlikely to already be one on the table), or with your fingers. This is not considered rude or messy. In fact, eating sushi with your hands is actually one of the most traditional and common ways to enjoy the Japanese delicacy.

Don't worry if you're not an experienced sushi-eater; there are no real rights or wrongs when it comes to the order you enjoy your sushi. However, to improve the experience, it's a good idea to build up to the stronger flavors on the conveyor belt. This is because if you start with pungent or spicy before moving on to mild, the stronger flavors will linger on your tongue and overpower the taste of your next dish. However, if you do want to start with spicy, that's when you should make use of the pickled ginger's palate-refreshing abilities.

White fish sushi dishes tend to have the mildest flavors, as do plant-based options, like avocado rolls, for example. Unagi, on the other hand, made with eel, tends to have a much stronger flavor profile, so consider leaving this one until after you've eaten a few milder options first. Other strong sushi options include kani sushi (which consists of spicy imitation crab), ikura sushi, which contains salmon eggs (it's also known as red caviar), and dragon rolls, which often contain shrimp or eel and are topped with spicy mayonnaise.

But the most important part of eating at a sushi conveyor belt restaurant is to enjoy yourself and the delicious foods that the chefs have prepared for you. There is something for everyone, whether you prefer it spicy, mild, or plant-based. So don't be afraid to get stuck in and savor the unique and authentic Japanese experience.