Yatai (retail)

For a listed company in the Shanghai Stock Exchange, please refer to Yatai Group.

Yatai in the summer festival

A yatai (屋台) is a small, mobile food stall in Japan typically selling ramen or other food. The name literally means "shop stand".

The stall is set up in the early evening on pedestrian walkways and removed late at night or in the early morning hours before commuters begin to fill the streets. Menus are usually limited; Japanese cuisine is most common, but Chinese and Western cuisine yatai are not unknown. Beer, sake, and shōchū are usually available. A salaryman might relax with colleagues over dinner and drinks at a yatai on his way home from work.

Fukuoka is well-known within Japan for having many yatai.

A reference to yatai in the modern sense is found as early as 1710. The word appears in an Edo-period sharebon, a genre of literature revolving around the pleasure quarters. Yatai became popular and widespread in the Meiji period (1868 – 1912) and were two-wheeled pushcarts constructed of wood.

Yatai are also set up temporarily for Matsuri festivals, selling foods for spectators, such as yakisoba, kakigōri, takoyaki, and okonomiyaki.

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  Tempura yatai of Edo period (Fukagawa Edo Museum)

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  Soba yatai of Edo period (Fukagawa Edo Museum)

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  Large yatai in the summer festival (Himeji Yukata Matsuri)

External links

• On the History of Fukuoka's Yatai (English)
• Fukuoka Travel: Food Stalls (English)
• Yatai in Fukuoka-shi (Japanese)