is a Japanese restaurant chain specializing in

ramen is a Chinese noodle dish popularized in Japan. It includes served in several flavors of broth. Common flavors are soy sauce and miso, with typical toppings including , nori (dried seaweed), menma (bamboo shoots), and scallions. Ramen h ...

noodles. The first restaurant was opened in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

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 ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. 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 green onions and spring onions) are edible vegetables of various species in the genus ''Allium''. Scallions generally have a milder taste than most onions. Their close relatives include garlic, shallots, leeks, chive ...

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