Say Farewell to Shinkansen Food Carts

The food cart service on the Tokaido Shinkansen, a decades-old staple of riding a bullet train in Japan, is coming to an end.

By Noah Oskow

For over half a century, passengers on Japan’s high-speed rail lines have relied on trusty food carts, pushed by polite, uniformed staff, for drink and sustenance needs during the long rides between the island nation’s major cities. Sitting in their well-appointed seats, salarymen would purchase beers from the cart, gleefully cracking them open to celebrate the end of business trips; passengers would buy coffees, attempting to stay awake as Mount Fuji zipped past their windows. Part of that staple Shinkansen experience is now at an end. While beers, snacks, coffee, and train bentos will remain bullet train mainstays, those trusty carts are about to become a thing of the past.

On August 8th, Central Japan Railway announced the termination of its food cart service for the Tokaido Shinkansen route. The busiest high-speed rail route in Japan, the Tokaido Shinkansen covers the hyper-populated region between Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, and Osaka. The last carts will roll down the bullet train aisles on October 31st.

This change comes alongside the recent announcement of price hikes for the…