No trip to Japan is complete without visiting numerous convenience stores (‘konbini’), pretty much found on every street corner. With over 55,000 convenience stores in Japan as of 2024, you may well have heard of 7-Eleven, Lawson or FamilyMart but one of the best convenience stores is Daily Yamazaki, famed for its fresh bread and ‘Daily Hot’ bakeries.
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Owned by Japan’s largest bakery company, Daily Yamazaki offers an incredible array of fresh food and baked goods – and dare we say the best egg sandwich in Japan?
Here is our guide to Daily Yamazaki, Japan’s lesser known convenience store / konbini chain.
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What is Daily Yamazaki Japan?
Daily Yamazaki is a chain of Japanese convenience stores (known locally as Konbini) – they are commonly seen in large Japanese cities like Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto.
Unlike 7-Eleven and Lawson, Daily Yamazaki isn’t in every Japanese prefecture – for instance in Hokkaido, there are no Daily Yamazaki’s (the local convenience store chain in Hokkaido is Seicomart).
Daily Yamazaki Japan convenience stores are easy to spot – they have bright red branding with a garish yellow logo; wear sunglasses!
Best of all, Daily Yamazaki has the best bakery section of any Japanese convenience store.
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History of Daily Yamazaki Japan
The chain of Daily Yamazaki stores in Japan began in late 1977 and have been trading in Japan for over 45 years.
Daily Yamazaki is owned by Yamazaki Baking, Japan’s largest bakery company that has headquarters in Tokyo – many of these Yamazaki Baking products are sold in stores.
Yamazaki Baking was founded in 1948 and started baking Japanese-style confectionery in 1949, beginning with castella (soft sponge cake), kirian (sweet bean paste) and yokan (sweet bean jelly).
There are around 1,400 Daily Yamazaki stores in Japan as of 2023. The number of stores in Japan has dropped in the last couple of decades from 2,000 to 1,400 shops likely due to strong competition and recession.
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Products and Services
Similar to 7-Eleven, FamilyMart and Lawson, Daily Yamazaki sells a wide range of fresh foods, confectionery and other regularly used household items.
Popular goods to buy include Japanese snacks and meals including bento boxes, instant noodles, onigiri and oden (a hot food counter where various foods are boiled and steamed like fish cakes and boiled eggs).
Daily Yamazaki also stock ice-creams, chocolates, soft drinks, beer and wine plus huge chillers of soft drinks.
There are lots of exclusive items in store including Daily Yamakazi’s Best Selection brand featuring premium products.
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Daily Yamazaki Bakeries / Daily Hot
As Daily Yamazaki is owned by Japan’s largest bakery (Yamazaki Baking), the bakery section is a particular delight.
It includes fresh items like hot dog style sausage rolls, melon bread, pastries and sweet treats like taro puffs and mochi balls.
Bigger Daily Yamazaki stores even have their own instore bakery called the ‘Daily Hot’, where bakers bake fresh bread and pastries, straight from the oven – these Daily Hot sections smell amazing!
There are several ‘Daily Hot’ bakeries in the Tokyo CBD area including in Shinjuku and Shibuya – just remember to take plenty of ‘dough’ to pay for all the ‘Hot Stuff’.
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Other Bakery Products
Recently, locals have raved about Daily Yamazaki’s Sora Tobu Donuts (“Flying Donuts”), saying they are better than Krispy Kreme and Mister Donut!
As well as Japanese desserts, Daily Yamazaki have their own range of exclusive Western style cakes available in most stores, like Swiss Roll and pound cakes.
We’ve also heard that Daily Yamazaki is quite famous in Japan for its range of Christmas cakes – Santa would approve!
Personally, we much prefer the bakery section at Daily Yamazaki compared to the likes of 7-Eleven Japan and Lawson or FamilyMart.
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Other Services
Daily Yamazaki isn’t just about food and drink – here you can purchase tickets, use the ATM, pay your bills or also make photocopies or top up your mobile phone.
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Daily Yamazaki Opening Hours
Some (but not all) Daily Yamazaki’s are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The 24/7 stores are generally in highly populated big city areas like Tokyo.
The smaller / regional stores generally open around 6am and close at midnight or 1am.
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Convenience Stores are ‘Big in Japan’
Convenience stores are called Konbinis in Japan or sometimes referred to as “Conbini” or “Combini”.
They are very popular in Japan and many are open 24 / 7. There are far more convenience stores than larger supermarkets.
There are over 55,000 convenience stores (konbini) in Japan as of 2024.
The Biggest Convenience Stores In Japan – where does Daily Yamazaki rank?
Daily Yamazaki is one of the top 10 convenience store chains in Japan with around 1,500 stores nationwide.
Daily Yamazaki has competition from several other large Japanese convenience stores in Japan – the largest three Japanese convenience store chains (konbinis) are 7-Eleven Japan, Family Mart Japan and Lawson’s Japan.
There are said to be 22,000 7-Eleven stores in Japan, 16,000 FamilyMart stores in Japan and 15,000 Lawson stores.
Other Japanese convenience stores include SeicoMart in Hokkaido (around 1,500 stores), New Days, Circle K and MiniStop.
Daily Yamazaki Egg Sandwiches
Possibly one of the most discussed topics by travellers to Japan:
“ Have you tried a Japanese convenience store egg sandwich?” or
“Which is the best egg sandwich in Japan?
Having spent several months in Japan, we tried a LOT of Japanese egg sandwiches – and we would say that the Daily Yamazaki Japan egg sandwiches were some of the best egg sandwiches we tried.
We tried our first Daily Yamazaki egg sandwich at the Kyoto Fushimi Inari branch – handily located right in front of the main entrance to the shrine.
As we’d arrived very early to try and beat the crowds, we hadn’t had breakfast and were thankful there was a Daily Yamazaki convenience store to get some snacks and water.
The Japan egg sandwich costs 270 Yen including tax for two sandwiches – so around £1.50 / $1.80 USD / 1.70 Euros); eggs-cellent value for money (sorry not sorry).
We really liked the egg sandwich – it is definitely one of the more generously filled egg sandwiches, with the sides bursting open with eggy goodness; very yellow too (yolky) with super soft white bread.
If you are an egg sandwich enthusiast, we’d rate the Daily Yamazaki egg sandwich as the best convenience store egg sandwich in Japan, tying it equally with the Lawson egg sandwich.
Read more in our guide to konbini egg sandwiches >
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