is a Japanese restaurant chain specializing in

ramen is a Japanese dish, Japanese noodle dish. It consists of served in a broth; common flavors are soy sauce and miso, with typical toppings including , nori (dried seaweed), menma (bamboo shoots), and scallions. Ramen has its roots in Chinese ...

noodles. The first restaurant was opened in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

by Tsutomu Kimura in 1981. As of December 2014, there are 233 branches in 38 of Japan's prefectures as well as a branch in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. The chain is often known by its short name . Tenkaippin holds a special promotion every October 1, which they call , playing off of the name of their restaurant and the calendar date.

Controversies

In October 2012, Tenkaippin was involved in a lawsuit over failure to pay a resort in Ōtsu, Shiga, for its appearance in one of their television commercials, with the resort demanding , which Tenkaippin refused to pay. In January 2014, 18 stores across the country revealed that they had been serving Chinese-grown

scallion Scallions (also known as spring onions or green onions) are vegetables derived from various species in the genus ''Allium''. Scallions generally have a milder taste than most onions and their close relatives include garlic, shallot, leek, ch ...

at their restaurants rather than the "Kujo Negi" scallion native to Kyoto, and the franchisee publicly apologized for the mix-up.

References

External links

* * Restaurant chains in Japan Ramen shops {{Japan-company-stub