Matsuya in 2026: how do you order at the ticket machine?

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Tokumeigakarinoaoshima, CC BY-SA 4.0

Matsuya is the beef-bowl chain where you order at a ticket machine, the miso soup comes free with a sit-down meal, and the bill grows about 7% after 22:00. All the prices below are the 13 October 2026 revision.

1What the chain is

Matsuya opened in June 1966 in Hazawa, in Tokyo's Nerima ward, as a Chinese restaurant. The beef-bowl format arrived at the Ekoda shop in July 1968, and the company still calls that building its No.1 branch. The chain that grew out of it's run by Matsuya Foods Holdings, which listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1999 and passed 1,000 beef-bowl shops in March 2013. June 2026 was its 60th year.

The group runs Matsunoya for tonkatsu, My Curry Shokudo, Sushimatsu, Matsuken Chinese, Matsutaro, Muginotoriko for pasta, Steak-ya Matsu and café terrasse verte, so a Matsuya sign in a suburb is often half of a two-brand building. What follows is about the beef bowl and the set meals.

The operator publishes the whole menu in English with its own names — Beef Bowl, Grilled Beef Bowl, Beef Curry & Rice. Those names sit beside the Japanese in the tables below, because the machine you order from prints the Japanese.

Source: Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

2How you order

A ticket machine stands inside the door, and the operator's own four-language sheet prints the order of operations: push EAT-IN or TAKEOUT, switch to the menu group you want, follow the on-screen instructions to pay, then take the ticket and sit down. The kitchen gets the order with nobody saying a word to you.

The language selector sits at the bottom of the screen. That's the one control worth finding before you touch anything, because the top of the screen is the two buttons that commit you to eating in or taking out.

Self-service branches work the other way round, and the operator's second sheet describes them: buy the ticket, the order goes through automatically, and the number appears on the left of the screen above the counter. You wait at your seat, collect at the counter when the number moves to the right side, and carry your own tableware to the return counter afterwards. And nobody hands you anything at the table.

The chain's own app takes the order before you get there. 松屋モバイルオーダー inside it lets you pick the branch, order and pay, and eat in or take out, with orders taken from opening until 65 minutes before closing; the operator says the group has passed six million app users. A chosen collection slot is the separate bento service, 松弁ネット at bento.matsuyafoods.co.jp: pickup only, order 15 minutes to 24 hours ahead. Delivery is a service of its own, 松弁デリバリー in the same app, with a ¥1,000 minimum and a ¥300 fee per drop.

Payment follows the branch and the route. A ticket machine or a self-checkout takes QR codes, and the operator's current list runs PayPay, d barai, Rakuten Pay, au PAY, Merpay, AEON Pay, WeChat Pay and Alipay+. Paying ahead is a narrower set: 松屋モバイルオーダー prepays on PayPay, Rakuten Pay, d barai, au PAY, Merpay or a credit card, with no cash and no transit IC, while the app's online payment added Alipay+ and WeChat Pay on 22 January 2026. Branches without a machine take only some QR brands, and the operator's QR page says the same of drive-through, 松弁ネット and phone-reserved bento.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Corpse Reviver, CC BY-SA 3.0

3The bowl sizes and what they cost

One bowl, five sizes, every price tax included. The operator's English menu calls the regular size Regular; the Japanese words in the first column are what the machine prints.

The regular went from ¥460 to ¥480 at 15:00 on 13 October 2026, and every beef bowl on the menu — set meals included — moved ¥20 the same afternoon, at every size.

あたま is the topping rather than the rice, which is why the chain lists that one as a size of its own between the regular and the large. The calorie and protein figures beside each size are dated 13 October 2026 on the page, and the operator warns that menu and prices can vary by branch.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · CatseyeTaku, CC BY-SA 4.0

4The miso soup

Eat in and the miso soup is free. The operator's note on the beef bowl page is plain about both halves: 店内にてご注文の場合、みそ汁をサービスいたします: order in the shop and the miso soup is served. The next line, お持ち帰りにみそ汁は付きません, says takeout orders don't include it. The bowl page adds that bento-only items don't get it either.

The published calorie counts already assume the soup. The operator states that the nutrition figures for the main menu include the miso soup, so the 670 kcal beside the regular bowl is the bowl and the soup together rather than the bowl alone.

Set meals go one better on the rice: a set meal or a rice set lets you pick the rice in small, regular, large or extra large at the same price, so a light appetite and a heavy one pay the same for the set.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Tokumeigakarinoaoshima, CC BY-SA 4.0

5After 22:00

Between 22:00 and 05:00 the price on the machine isn't the price on this page. Every item page carries the same note under 備考: from 22:00 until 05:00 the chain adds a late-night charge (深夜料金) of around 7%.

The arithmetic is what matters at midnight. Seven per cent on the ¥480 regular is about ¥34, so the bowl lands near ¥514. The ¥450 small lands near ¥482, and the ¥880 extra large near ¥942 — more than the menu says, and about what the large bowl plus a side dish costs at noon.

The soup doesn't change and neither does the menu. But the figure is an approximate one, and the page warns that prices vary by branch.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Tokumeigakarinoaoshima, CC BY-SA 4.0

6Breakfast, 05:00–11:00

The morning menu runs from 05:00 to 11:00 (午前5時～午前11時販売). Six items, five of them with rice and miso soup, and the English names are the operator's own.

Four choose-one sides (選べる小鉢) sit on the same page: a mini beef plate, natto with spring onion, cold tofu, and domestic grated yam. The pickles are cabbage or Chinese cabbage depending on the season, which is all the page says about them.

Morning sets can't be taken out — the operator prints that under the list and repeats it on every item — so breakfast at Matsuya is a sit-down meal by definition. The ¥430 Simmered Beef Meal is the cheapest way to eat beef on the page.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · nakashi from Chofu, Tokyo, JAPAN, CC BY-SA 2.0

7Lunch, 11:00–15:00

The same bowls come back as lunch sets from 11:00 to 15:00 (午前11時～午後3時販売), each with one side included. The English names below are the operator's names for the plain bowls; the lunch sets themselves exist only on the Japanese pages, so match the word rather than the English.

The side is where the two pages differ. A raw egg can only be chosen with the ¥550 beef bowl set, the soft-boiled egg is the one the operator marks as unavailable with that same set, and raw vegetables cost ¥50 more.

Curry gets its own lunch window. 創業ビーフカレーランチセット is ¥730, ¥930 with cheese, ¥940 with a hamburg steak and ¥1,000 with simmered beef, with the same three sides at ¥50 more. Children get two sets of their own at ¥480 each — おこさま牛めしわくわくセット and おこさまカレーわくわくセット — plus a ¥100 drink called マミー.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Kyu3a, CC BY-SA 4.0

8Curry and the other bowls

Two curry families sit on the same page. Beef Curry & Rice is ¥680, and the versions with the topping in their name are the same plate: ¥880 with cheese, ¥950 with a hamburg steak, ¥950 with simmered beef and ¥1,070 with a pork loin cutlet. Neo-Kashmir Curry & Rice (ネオカシミールカレー) is also ¥680, and runs to ¥880 with cheese, ¥890 with a hamburg steak, ¥950 with simmered beef and ¥1,050 with grilled chicken. Its cutlet version is ¥1,070.

The bowl page is four rice bowls between ¥630 and ¥690: Grilled Beef Bowl and Pork Bowl w/ Green Onion Salt Sauce at ¥630, Beef Bibimbap Bowl and Boneless Short Rib and Kimchi Bowl at ¥690. The grilled beef bowl comes in three sizes on the Japanese page — small ¥600, regular ¥630, large ¥850.

The rest of the beef menu is one bowl with one thing on top. Bowl of Mixed Simmered Beef and Kimchi and Beef Bowl topped with Grated Radish & Ponzu Citrus Soy Sauce are ¥580; Beef Bowl topped with Green Onion and Soft Boiled Egg and Beef Bowl topped with Extra Cheese are ¥680; Beef Bowl w/ Tomato Sauce & Cheese is ¥710. Two pre-packaged beef bowls are sold as sets of two for ¥900 and three for ¥1,320.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Tokumeigakarinoaoshima, CC BY-SA 4.0

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Tokumeigakarinoaoshima, CC BY-SA 4.0

Source: Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

9Set meals and the sides

The set-meal page is where a beef plate turns into dinner rather than a snack, and the English names are the operator's own. All of them come with rice, salad and miso soup, and the rice comes in any of the four sizes for the same money.

Everything on the side menu is priced on its own, and it's how you size a bowl up. Miso soup is ¥90, a bowl of rice ¥200, a salad ¥150, a raw or soft-boiled egg ¥100, a mini beef plate ¥200, grated domestic yam ¥170, cold tofu ¥140, kimchi or pickles ¥100 and a piece of seared salmon ¥380. A single item bought on its own comes with no rice, salad or soup — the set is what turns a plate of beef into a meal.

10What I'd do

• 07:00. The ¥430 Simmered Beef Meal buys beef and rice with no sides to argue about. Add the ¥540 sausage set if you want a proper plate of food before a train.
• 12:00. The ¥550 beef bowl lunch set is ¥70 more than the plain regular bowl and comes with a side, which makes lunch the cheapest hour to eat here.
• 23:00. Order the small. At ¥450 plus the 7% it lands near ¥482 — cheaper than the regular bowl was at noon, and the surcharge is the reason not to finish the day on an extra large.
• Eat in if you want the miso soup. Takeout leaves it out, and the calories on the page are counted with it.
• Take the regular over the small. Thirty yen buys 175 kcal more, and it's the same bowl of beef with a bigger mound under it.
• Skip the machine queue with the app. 松屋モバイルオーダー takes the order and the payment before you arrive, and the ticket machine is the slowest part of a busy lunch.

Source: Wikimedia Commons · Corpse Reviver, CC BY-SA 3.0

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