America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws

Summary

In Japan, workers rely on healthy lunch bowls for under $4. Japanese media literally tracks these prices because they're a daily staple for working people. The Japanese media reported on a surge in their price from $2.63 to $4.25 in 2021.In America, we track grocery prices. Restaurants are luxury goods.The U.S. lacks this budget restaurant tier! There's obviously demand for it. We'd buy $4 balanced meals if we had the option.How does Japan’s restaurant market do this?It’s not grocery prices; Japan’s grocery prices are ~18% higher than the United States.It’s not hourly wages. Japan’s minimum wage ($6.68 an hour) is similar to America’s ($7.25).Japan allows businesses that are only a few feet wide. Japanese restaurants can operate in small spaces, like one floor of a narrow single-stair case building (no wasted space or resources on a shared lobby)."Koreatown manhattan 2009" by chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0. Grabbed from Noah Smith.In Japan, someone can even build a tiny coffeeshop in front of their home.Because of small setups like these, many Japanese restaurants have only one or two staff. Some restaurants are physically so small that they can only seat two to five people. In some, you even eat standing up.A tiny restaurant staffed by just a single person, their stove, and a rice cooker can sell you lunch for a similar price you'd pay at home.The overhead is minimal.But in the US, tiny restaurants are illegal.Our zoning laws require almost every business to:Maintain a large building footprintProvide 2-4 parking spaces per businessOperate at a scale that requires multiple employeesFood trucks could help if they were allowed at scale. But the restaurant industry fights to limit food trucks. On average, food trucks must handle 45 separate regulatory procedures and spend $28,276 on associated fees. Relatedly, our health code regulations also effectively outlaw people from opening restaurants in small spaces. Most jurisdictions require at least 3-4 different sinks—one for wa...