Marugame Family Night is for the Marugame families, not the customers.

Japanese noodle restaurant chain Marugame Seimen, also known as Marugame Udon, has announced that later this month it’ll be having a Marugame Family Night. From the name, you might expect this to be a one-night promotion with special deals for families dining out together, like a kids-eat-free service or a discount for groups that order three or four bowls of noodles at a time.

However, while the goal of Marugame Family Night is indeed to put a smile on families’ faces, they’re not trying to entice customers to come eat dinner at their local Marugame branch. As a matter of fact, there’s not going to be anyone at the restaurant on Marugame Family Night, because the company is giving workers that night off to spend with their families and loved ones.

Marugame Family Night falls on a date with a different, more widely known name: Christmas Eve. On December 24, Marugame branches will be open for lunch as usual, but will close at 3:30. While Christmas Eve has long been a major date night in Japan, celebrating Christmas with family and friends has become increasingly popular too, and rather than have employees working away over hot noodle pots, Marugame figures they’ll be much happier exchanging presents, eating Christmas cake, or just having some extra time to relax.

▼ A piping hot bowl of udon can be very satisfying on a cold winter night, and Marugame’s limited-time udon with duck does look like a particularly tasty example, but we’ll survive having to find something else to eat for dinner one time.

The decision has been met with a very positive reaction from the public, with comments on Japanese Twitter including:

“It’s wonderful that they’re taking the time to think about their workers’ families!”
“This is a wonderful idea. Even if you have vacation time built up, it can be hard to ask for the night off if you know everyone else is going to be busy and working hard, so I hope more companies will start giving the entire staff the night off like this.”
“So good to see a company taking care of its workers like this.”
“To everyone who works at Marugame, I hope you enjoy a restful night with your family.”
“It’s like the company is full of Santas!”

Marugame Family Night is part of the Happiness Capital Management initiative started earlier this year by Marugame’s parent company Toridoll Holdings. The program’s aim is to find ways to promote mental wellbeing and emotional health amongst its workers.

A few cynical, or perhaps simply comprehensively observant, online commenters also pointed out that most Marugame branches probably don’t do all that much business on Christmas Eve, given that most Japanese people opt for either fancy Western cuisine or fried chicken for dinner on December 24, and so the Marugame Family Night will probably benefit the company too through reduced food waste and utility costs. Workers still get the night off, though, regardless of the win-win nature of the situation.

One commenter also took issue, in a tongue-and-cheek way, of Marugame Family Night wrecking his plans to, as a lonely guy with no Christmas Eve plans, go to Marugame and eat a bowl of udon in stoic solitude. The chain has said, though, that a handful of restaurants may remain open on December 24, so he might still be able to stick to his original plan by expanding his dining radius if his local branch isn’t open, but for most people, they’ll need to find someplace other than Marugame to eat at that night.

Source: Marugame Seimen, Twitter/@UdonMarugame
Top image: PR Times
Insert image: PR Times
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