00:03 John Daub: Hey everybody! That there is the Automat Diner. This is called Jihanki Shokudo (vending machine restaurant). I came here about four or five years ago and did a main channel episode on this. I'm going to put the link right here so you can go and check that out. But I thought I'd come here and do this live. It's different when you're live because then you can kind of feel the ambience of the restaurant.

00:27 John Daub: We came here by Rent-A-Car. This is the Prius that I rented from Toyota Rent-A-Car from Nerima, which is on the outskirts of Tokyo going right to the highway. And it took us about a little bit over an hour to get here. This is the mascot. It's the little girl with the mustache. It's so nice to be back. That's right. Inside of here they have retro vending machines from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.

00:50 John Daub: And the owner, Tomaru-san, has been repairing or renovating these machines and making an actual working restaurant. It's pretty cool. So let's go inside and check out some of these restaurants. But I'm also going to be introducing you to... There's the entrance to Joe. This is Joe Hattab. Welcome to the vending machine restaurant. Welcome, indeed.

01:14 John Daub: No staff. That's right. There's literally nobody here. I know the owner, Tomaru-san, an extremely nice guy. I come here and always call him up and he shows us the inside of the machines. He's gone. We've come here to film for Joe's channel. So you're going to want to check that out. But I thought when we're going to be doing his channel, why not you guys can sit in and watch.

01:37 John Daub: We're going to try some of this food. We've already bought some of it. And then stay tuned until the end of this video. And I'm going to buy some more. So you guys can determine through the community which one you want to eat. This is a tartar meat sauce with bacon. Joe can't eat any meat, so I'm going to be eating that. This is ramen, obviously. This came from that ramen machine right there.

01:59 John Daub: He said it's over 50 years old, this machine. It's pretty unique. I'll explain how it all works. This is the grilled cheese sandwich that's so hot you need tongs to eat it. And this is the burger. Joe's been chomping at this a little bit. That's meat, Joe. You can eat the bun. And we got the old school Coca-Cola things. But this tong and oven mitt is part of the sandwich.

02:28 John Daub: So let's put this back. So in case another customer comes, they're going to want to use this. The oven mitt goes here. Because it comes out of these retro vending machines hot. So you're going to want to use this. But Tomaru-san, the owner, has set this up so it's all very neat. Let me just give you a panning shot and then Joe and I will try the food and then talk about it a little bit.

02:55 John Daub: This is like a mystery vending machine with a lot of stuff. The Cosmos. And he's set up key chains and things that he can sell. Here are little retro models of the vending machines. And you can get the key chains. I'm really happy to see that Tomaru-san is doing good with his business. And then I'm going to give you an overview more of this restaurant and show you some of the other neat things that you can do here.

03:23 John Daub: This is where you can sit. It's about an hour drive from Tokyo for people that are asking. In Gunma. Isesaki, Gunma. And there's the udon and ramen vending machine and the cheeseburger vending machine. Which I think is pretty good burger actually. It doesn't look good but you guys be the judge. So without further ado, we're going to film for Joe's channel.

04:04 Joe Hattab: You need some help?

04:06 John Daub: We're going to stop. Yeah. I'm here to help you. Let's do it. Just this shot? Okay. Get this shot here. So we're going to focus in on Joe's going to get a shot eating his ramen.

04:24 Joe Hattab: Okay. It's a manual. It looked good.

04:33 John Daub: I'm in focus, right? Yeah. Good? It looked pretty good. When you slammed it down, I think starting from that looks pretty natural. You want to do it again from when you put it down? But don't look at me. I'll make sure it's in focus. Okay. Let's try it again. It's a manual. Ah, okay. I put the focus here. Oh, perfect then. All right. It's pretty true. Perfect. It was good? Yeah. That looks pretty good. Stop? Yes. Let's do it.

05:24 John Daub: We're going to start off with this retro Coca-Cola. I'm going to open this up here. The bottle cap. Hey, Joe, where did you open the bottle? Here. The second one. Here. Oh, it's right there. Okay. I thought it would be on the machine. Hey, Simon Osborn's here. This place looks cool. Have a snack on me. Thank you, Simon. We're going to get a burger. Thanks, guys.

05:50 John Daub: This is old school retro Coca-Cola. You don't see this in a lot of places. And I don't drink Coke much at all, but when you see it retro like this, you got to try it. It does taste good.

06:06 Joe Hattab: Can you see the camera here? That's wide, right? Oh, it's zoom. Okay.

06:13 John Daub: So I'll leave it here. We're going to eat the food, and then you're going to get a chance to hear us talk about it. And Joe is speaking in Arabic. He's going to speak English. I'm not going to reply if you're speaking in Arabic. Joe's channel is Joe Hattab. He's got some pretty interesting stuff from all around the world. Joe is not home often. He was in Taiwan before this, and now he's here for 15 days. And we're going to be talking about this food here.

07:01 John Daub: Actually. I can unbox this with you right now while Joe's setting this up. Yeah. Unbox it. Yeah. I'll take some close shots of your unbox. Oh, okay. Here we go. All right. It looks like the expiration date is written right here. 2019, December 1st. So it can go for a week? Oh wow. Wow. It's seeping through. Look at that. Oh, you know, it's going to be good when it's that oily. And it does smell good.

07:56 John Daub: Oh, look at that wrinkled bun. Looks like high school, like one of these high school cafeteria burgers. It's still kind of wet. Condensation from being heated. And there's the tartar sauce on there. Would you guys eat this? It looks scary, man. Oh, no. Okay. It looks okay. They put some seasoning on the bun there. He just put it in front of us in the refrigerator. He literally just refilled it in the refrigerator. What's it look like? It's got some volume to it. Oh, man. The sloppy tartar sauce on there. Ta-ta. Nice. All right.

08:39 John Daub: Well, we're going to get a chance to eat this. Did you get the film from that? It's okay? Yeah. All right. I'm going to ruin my health. Eat this. We're going to be eating it for this camera. So you can put this close here. Really? I think it's because it's not as wide here. This might be just as good. Yeah. It does. I mean, it's not as big. I don't know. You're going to eat this one, right? Yeah. I'm going to eat the toast and maybe I'll try the burger. All right. Good luck. You can start.

09:24 Joe Hattab: You can start. Let's put the scraps here. I'll follow your lead.

09:29 John Daub: It's good when someone else is filming because I don't have to do much. He can lead. I'll follow. Hey, Hoof. Andrew. Hey. We'll start with the toast. Breakfast. And you're going to go with the lunch? I'm going with the lunch. So it's weird. I find that I'm going to eat the toast. I'm going to try this toast. Banana toast? Yeah. Banana toast inside the vending machine. Banana with Nutella. Wow. Let's do it. Same time? Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's do it.

10:05 John Daub: Banana with Nutella. Um, strange cheeseburger with tartar sauce. Some customer. This is so good. Better than 7-Eleven. It's better than you think it would be, vending machine food. This is good. I like the moistness to the burger. Um, the meat, it does taste pretty processed a little bit, but... Konnichiwa (hello). But, the moistness also makes it really delicious. Nothing like a dry burger. It's not good, but this is. It's good. It's pretty good.

10:46 Customer: And so many customers. Yeah, it's popular. YouTube. Come say hi. YouTube. Dubai, America. YouTube. YouTube. YouTube, everyone.

11:05 John Daub: Ah, he's doing a live stream. Me. Live stream. And there. Come. Come. Say hi. Um, around 800 people now. Wow, no way. Yeah. Hello. Do you have many questions for the new, new customers.

11:28 Customer: It's good. Did you come here for the first time? Um. First time coming. Yes. First time, I've never been here before. Niigata. Niigata? Oh! I know, I know. You know? Yeah, I know. Yay! Yay!

11:43 John Daub: He's stretching. You're pretty famous. This is a new record. 6,000 yen, 125 points. Wow! You're doing a good job. Thank you. Your name? Joe. John. Bring noodles and come sit here. This is live. This is YouTube. Only in Japan. There are so many comments. Wow. There's a lot of comments. Do you have any comments for our friends from Niigata?

12:29 Customer: Niigata City, Nagoya. Niigata City. Niigata City. Niigata City. Niigata City. I was in Katakai two weeks ago. Two months ago? Yeah. The fireworks. Yeah, the fireworks. I interviewed Honda-san at Yonshaku. Oh, cool.

12:44 John Daub: The food is actually good, guys. Yeah. I'm going to come back. It's really nice. The vending machine is good. You can eat it. I haven't been back here for five years. If I'm just walking by or just stop by. Yeah, it's very popular with the locals. It's really good. I'm not sure if it's because of the locals, but because it's so rare and because these vending machines are collectibles, people from all over Japan will stop here.

13:08 Customer: Oh, yeah, yeah. Right?

13:09 John Daub: Actually, Tomaru-san, the owner, has written a book. Oh, yeah? He has a book, so he's something of a local celebrity. Oh, okay, okay. So, that's why a lot of people are coming and also commenting on giving a good review about the restaurant. Actually, on the Google map, it's written vending machine cafeteria, right? Yeah. Vending machine cafeteria. Yeah. Or automat diner. Or Japanese jihanki shokudo. You can try the udon. It's for you. For me? Yeah, yeah, because I think you like udon. You live in Japan. That's true.

13:48 John Daub: Guys, the burger is really moist. It looks absolutely disgusting. I know that. But there's just something really pleasant about the processed meat of it and the tartar sauce. I know it's a little bit of a mess, but it's really good. I know it's not good for you. Don't try to justify, oh, it's good for you. It's not. It's vending machine. Joe, you know it's not good for you, right, Joe?

14:10 Joe Hattab: Yeah, it's just fast food. But... Once in a year.

14:18 John Daub: Once every five years for me. That was five years ago. And once every year. You coming back again? You sure? You really coming back? There's a lot of people. I don't know. Why did you come here? Why did you come here? I don't know. Because it's famous. Because it's famous. Ah, it's famous, so they've come all the way from Niigata. Only here? No, it's in Tokyo, right? Only in Gunma today. Oh, only in Gunma. Yes. That's right. Today they're just going to see Gunma. There was a Brazilian supermarket earlier. Ah, a Brazilian supermarket. Cool.

14:58 John Daub: But, yeah, this is... How much was this? 300 yen? About $2.80. It's a little bit more than McDonald's. But... It's good. I think... He needs to put the french fries inside. He needs the french fries. So, Tomaru-san, you need the french fries. Yeah. He's watching you. Like... He might be. He might come with the french fries. Yeah, we're Twitter friends. So, we send emails back and forth for years. I'm going to bring Kanae here, my wife. We're going to have a vending machine date right there. Do you see the table? You can bring a date here. I think it'd be pretty good.

15:36 John Daub: Hey, David. Yeah. I'm actually going to get something for my wife. Can I bring her a burger? Kanae, you want a burger? I know she doesn't want a burger. We need to clean up by ourselves. We need to clean up. The food is good. But, I mean, it's not like you go out of town to get it specially. But, it's good, but it's not perfect. It's okay. It's okay. Do you want to see the toppings? It's underneath. What toppings? It's not just noodles. Underneath there, the toppings, you have to flip it. And I think you're going to see the meat is... It's flipped. Do you want to film that? No, it's fine. Okay. You guys want to see it? I think so. All right.

16:18 John Daub: It came out like this on the machine, but the good stuff is underneath it. Look. See? So, there's the chashu. Joe, there's the meat. Ah, okay. Under. Yeah. I don't know. You guys can tell me. Is this... Is that good chashu meat or not? Nah, it's... I think it looks good. It's a good chashu. It's a small piece, but... Coca-Cola tastes good? It's really good. I'm going to take another one. All right. Let's try it.

17:04 Customer: What you can order more? Green tea? Yeah. Ah, you order toast? Toast. Banana toast? Banana toast. Green coca. What you can order more? Banana toast. Banana toast.

17:20 John Daub: Was it good, Joe? Joe got the banana toast. It was okay. It was only okay. It was okay. It was okay. You don't have to open it. Do you want to do it? It's hot. Oh, you can eat this. Surprise. This is a vending machine restaurant. We've just gotten... They've just bought a sandwich. Grilled sandwich. But this one has chocolate and bananas. Choco banana? Chocolate banana. Chocolate banana.

18:03 Customer: Cha cha cha. Uki, uki, uki. Uki, uki, uki. Look at that. You don't have to do it. It's okay. Thank you. Let them eat. Just let them eat, right, Joe?

18:36 Joe Hattab: Joe, you gonna get more?

18:40 John Daub: I don't know. Was there anything else? Did you want to get the udon? The tempura? How it looks like? How about I just... I'll buy one for you then. Let's go. So for everybody who gives super chats, here we go. Your friend needs to be... I know, Rajesh, I know. Just... I think though... I think in these kinds of situations, people are a little bit more flexible outside of Tokyo, but I know that people are quite strict.

19:21 John Daub: So my friend, Tomaru-san, who owns this restaurant, I called him the day before, but when you make a reservation to location shoot, you're gonna have to wait for the restaurant to close. So you're gonna want to do it like a week in advance in Tokyo or more. But out here in the countryside, if you know the people, you can be a little bit more casual, but it's very respectful to ask first. And we asked, right? So it's okay. But I feel you.

19:50 John Daub: All right, this is the udon vending machine. We tried the ramen right here. Now we're gonna try the tempura udon. It's 330 yen, so it's about... So I'm gonna put in 400 yen here, and it's gonna give us the change. A game, eh? A winner! You won! All right, guys, here we go. All right, let's see if we can get to 350 likes in one minute. Are you ready? 350 likes. Go! Oh wait, there's only 25 seconds! Quickly! Quickly, guys! Do it! Click the like button! 15 seconds! Can we get to 350 in 14 seconds? Do it! I know we can do this! Do it! 322! 355! We did it! All right, community coming through! Good job, everybody! 380! Look at the like count going up. We got 400! We completely exceeded it. That is so awesome.

21:14 John Daub: Aw, man. Oh, it's so hot! All right, Joe, you ready? I'm gonna pull her out. 3, 2, 1. This says, Udon. And you can see the fried vegetables tempura on top of some thicker noodles. Come to John. The one thing that I don't like about it, and I'm probably not gonna eat it all, is it's super salty.

21:55 John Daub: Last time I was here, five years ago, I ate a lot of this because I had to do take two, take three. I ate so much of it. There was one clip where I was eating air. It was a far away shot, and I said, okay, no one's gonna be able to tell. And some of the comments said, John's eating air. He's faking it. And I was, because I ate so much of this stuff. Taking turbs. Yeah, there's a lot of preservatives in it that I just couldn't, didn't want to eat anymore. And people could tell.

22:22 John Daub: But just take a quick look here. This is what you get. This is retro. Mind you, this is over 50 years old, this machine that's making it inside of it. It's very, very old school. The tempura is, it's pretty good. But, I don't know, the longer it sits in the soup, the more it starts to fall apart. It's that oily, oiliness and saltiness of it that makes it really attractive. The udon is nothing to write home about, but it's good. I mean, it'll fill you up. There's the udon noodles. There. Yeah, it's not the best, but it's good. So let's try this. Just taking B-roll here. Alright. It's good.

23:23 John Daub: I can't complain about it, because it's hard to mess up tempura. Batter, vegetables, deep fry it, put it in the soup. You can't go wrong with that. But the soup itself is very salty. Let's try the soup. It's dashi, yeah. It's fish soup stock, but it's so salty. Not necessary, it's so salty. This is very Instagram friendly.

24:17 John Daub: Val Batista, thank you. From Philippines. How cool is that? And Honey Creepin. Hi John, I'm a student and I recently got my first job. Now I can support your content. I've been subscribed since 2016. Always loved your videos. Honey Creepin, thank you. Thanks for the support. Very awesome. We're gonna be driving. I might do another livestream today, because we're gonna be driving out to the countryside, and I'm showing Joe some of the autumn colors out towards Nikko. So we're gonna get in the Rent-A-Car and just drive off. So maybe I might get another burger. I don't know. What do you guys think? If we get to like a thousand likes, maybe I'll get another burger. I don't know. What do you guys think?

25:06 John Daub: This is the iPhone 11 Pro on a DJI gimbal. DJI gimbal. So Tomaru-san was here, the owner, and Joe got a chance to interview him, and some of the things he said is, why did they open up this vending machine restaurant? There is no staff here. The staff is, when Tomaru-san comes, he comes inside of here, he'll take the trash away, he'll refill the machines, and then he's gone. There is no staff anywhere inside of this vending machine restaurant.

25:52 John Daub: It is so clean. No trash on the floors. Everybody recycles. Check it out. The bowls are very neatly placed back. Any soup or remaining food is put into this bucket. This is a nokori (leftovers), means remaining, the remaining stuff gets put into the funnel, and then he'll throw it out. The chopsticks are recycled right here, and any other waste, the cardboard boxes from the sandwiches are placed here.

26:20 John Daub: It's a really easy system. You don't even have to explain it. Everybody knows where it all goes. On top of that, you see on the counter, you have, which makes it a restaurant, condiments and stuff. Just use it freely. Everybody knows how it works. There's even toothpicks, which is crazy. It's just well maintained and well monitored. It's monitored because there are cameras these days, right here, so somebody's watching you.

26:45 John Daub: But he, in the interview, he told us that they have never had any crime or any kind of person trying to rob the things because he's clearing the money out twice a day. There's not that much in there anyways. Yeah. Good job, Joe. You're a responsible citizen. You're becoming Japanese, Joe. This burger? I didn't stop. That's not why. I'm vegetarian.

27:19 Joe Hattab: Okay, so we're not telling anybody that you ate that. But you didn't eat it. You didn't eat it. I didn't eat it. He didn't eat it. It was just for the thumbnail. Just thumbnail. I ate it. You ate the sandwich with the banana. That's okay. That's okay.

27:37 John Daub: Alright, guys. We're not going to be able to eat this because it's going to destroy our appetite. So we're going to have to put this away. Sorry, guys. This is what you would do. Oh, we got a jam! Joe. It doesn't fit. Oh, man. This is not good. Okay. How do you eat the sandwich? No, I tried to put your stuff inside the funnel and it's not working. And I'm really embarrassed. Joe. You can just push it down there. There it goes, Joe. Okay, I got it. I got it. Sorry. Sorry, we can't eat that. Sorry. Okay, there we go. Be clean. Be clean. I'm sorry. I didn't think it would clog like that.

28:40 John Daub: You sure you don't want any of the tempura, Joe? I'm done. You're done? Okay. This should go down easier. Udon is easier than udon is easier. Down the hatch. And after you clean up, you want to wipe off the table yourself, too. So you're always thinking about, in Japan, you're thinking about the next person and leave it the way you found it or even better. That's how I like to think. Leave it the way you found it or better. That's how you should be responsible.

29:47 John Daub: It's not up to somebody else to clean up after you. It's up to you to take this responsibility to clean up yourself. And you can see, it's like it's something that's known in Japan. Right? It's known in Japan. You don't have to clean up you usually don't clean up somebody else's mess because they've cleaned it up for you. You can also leave your name in the guest book here. Which is pretty cool. From Niigata City. Also they got some manga which you can read here. Manga. Very cool.

30:31 John Daub: I don't know. What do you guys think? Do you like this? Do you guys want to eat inside of the vending machine restaurant? This is the toast sandwich vending machine. It's $2.50. Joe got the chocolate and banana cream. But I'm very interested in this ham and cheddar cheese. Which looks pretty good. It takes 40 seconds for it to pop out. And it comes out super hot because they don't use microwaves. It's actually ovened. Like super heaters are like it comes out piping hot. I guess there's like maybe there's even a fire in there. I don't know. But you have to use the tongs to take it out or else you'll burn yourself. Put it onto the tray.

31:23 John Daub: There is a lot of preservatives. I made a video on this on the main channel. You can click the link I'm going to put in the playback and you can check that out. But I think we're done. I think Joe and I are done. Joe's now filming the outside of it. He's getting the exterior shots right now. And then we can go. I always, I also put the seats back so it's like I wasn't even here. Wasn't even here. This is my third time being in the Jihanki Shokudo. Did you get it all? You ready to roll? Yeah. Boom. See you later.

32:14 John Daub: Eric Eggers, I can't wait to go back to Japan. Visited two years ago with my wife and we hope to live there soon. Your videos help the wait. I'm happy to hear that. We tried some of these games. They're very retro. I think you could spend a couple of hours here if you have kids especially. It's fun. It was fun, right? It's pretty fun, right Joe? It's amazing. Anything else you want to make or you think you got the video? All good.

32:41 John Daub: Jihanki Shokudo celebrated its fifth anniversary. That's a little flag for it on just last week. 2014 to 2019. So I'm really happy to see the big success of Tomaru-san who's the owner of this shop. And I'm happy to see that a lot of foreign visitors are coming here too. Anything else you want to film? You okay? Yeah. You gonna drive now? I don't know how to drive. You don't have a license. You can't drive. He can't drive. He doesn't have a license. Put him on the spot like that. Thanks UFO Bob for putting in Joe's channel. It's very cool. Joe also has an English channel and there's the Jihanki Shokudo sign.

33:31 John Daub: This is the stuff that other YouTubers might not show. Do you have any other shots you want to take before we leave? I can finish it any time until the autumn leaves. Let's get moving. I'm gonna end it when we get in the car. Do you want to take something? Here? It's pretty windy. We gotta drive to another spot and come back. You don't ever launch it from here. Oh really? Yeah. Can we get something inside also? I don't think so. I'll just have to get my bag. Oh yeah my bag. Don't forget anything. That's for my DJI gimbal. Oh they had shichimi (seven spice). That's the spice. Don't forget that.

34:35 John Daub: Alright we can do it but you can't launch a drone from the highway. You have to be 30 meters from the building. Guys I also asked for this. I don't need to put this but it says A foreigner is driving. I just thought it's pretty cool that they do that. You shouldn't be embarrassed by it. What that means is that it means that other drivers will know that you're not from around here and it will actually mean you'll have more nice drivers around you saying hello and stuff. I like that. So I got this on here. Alright Joe let's take off.

35:09 John Daub: This is where we say goodbye to you. I'm driving. Wait why am I getting the American side? I told you. Sometimes I forget that I'm in Japan. We're driving on the left side of the road here in Japan everybody. Alright we have everything. Yeah. I have the GoPro set up here as well. Woah baby. This is a Prius. So thanks everybody for watching. I appreciate it. Thank you. We're not the wrong side. This is the Japan side. It's Vish I saw that. It's Vash wrong side. I saw that. You saw that too. Have a great day. Have a great night. Wherever you are in the world. I'm gonna go get some autumn leaves because it's prime season now. Bye bye. Smell like a cheeseburger now.