Sushi Rinda opened its doors in 2014 in Tokyo's Fudomae district. For over a decade, it has been beloved by countless guests as a popular sushi restaurant where the craft of Edomae sushi coexists with a warm sense of approachability. While dedicated to Edomae sushi craftsmanship — striving to create a satisfying experience that encompasses not only the taste of each dish but also fine attention to detail and the comfortable sense of closeness shared with every guest — the restaurant had been facing ongoing operational challenges: frequent overbooking across multiple reservation platforms, difficulty collecting cancellation fees for no-shows and last-minute cancellations, and the siloing of guest information held only in individual staff members' memories. Through its long-standing use of Respo since the platform's earliest days, Sushi Rinda has achieved flexible cancellation-fee collection, the conversion of lost opportunities into new sales via the follower-notification feature, the cultivation of a culture of accumulating and leveraging guest insights, and "simple operations anyone on the team can handle" grounded in Respo's design philosophy — realizing "a long-term partnership that goes beyond reservation management and moves in step with the restaurant's own growth."
Challenges Before Adopting Respo
Sushi Rinda was facing the following operational challenges:
■Frequent overbooking caused by juggling multiple reservation platforms
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The restaurant was using several reservation platforms in parallel, but with no one on-site able to manage them in a unified way, overbooking occurred frequently.
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Each platform had different structures for referral fees and guest-side service charges, making it genuinely difficult to compare and determine which was the best fit for the restaurant.
■Cancellation-fee collection for no-shows and last-minute cancellations
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Every time a no-show or last-minute cancellation occurred, the restaurant had to directly contact the guest by phone or email to request payment for the course fee.
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Some guests simply went silent and became unreachable — a significant blow for a small sushi restaurant with limited seats.
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There was a growing need to narrow down to reservation platforms that could reliably collect cancellation fees.
■Siloed guest information held in individual staff members' memories
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There was no structured system in place to retain guest information; it lived primarily in the memory of whichever staff member had served that guest.
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Sharing this information across the team was difficult, and when a different staff member took over, the relationship with the guest often had to start over from scratch.
Impact of Adopting Respo
■Impact 1: Peace of mind in restaurant operations, thanks to flexible cancellation-fee collection
Sushi Rinda can now exercise judgment based on each guest's situation — whether it is a true no-show, or a guest reaching out at the last minute to say they can no longer make it — all in line with the restaurant's cancellation policy. For unreported no-shows, the fee is collected reliably; when a guest contacts the restaurant with specific circumstances, the team can make a case-by-case decision. This kind of flexibility fits remarkably well with the sushi-restaurant environment, where every single reservation carries significant weight on the bottom line, and it has become a meaningful source of operational peace of mind.
■Impact 2: Turning lost opportunities into new sales through the follower-notification feature
When a seat suddenly becomes available, the restaurant can now send a special message to its followers, prioritizing regular guests. What would otherwise have been a lost opportunity due to a cancellation can instead be converted into the next sales moment — and together, "peace of mind" and "recovery" now form a stronger foundation for the restaurant's operations.
■Impact 3: Fostering a culture of accumulating and leveraging guest insights
Sushi Rinda, which places great importance on managing guest information, now records detailed notes with every visit in Respo's customer memo feature — including information about who regular guests tend to visit with, their anniversaries, and their favorite ingredients. These accumulated insights now inform how the team guides and hosts guests on their next visit, giving rise to a genuine culture of "accumulating and leveraging guest information" throughout the restaurant.
■Impact 4: An on-the-floor setup anyone can handle, grounded in Respo's simple design
The reason Sushi Rinda can achieve "simple operations" that everyone — from staff comfortable with digital tools to those who lean more analog — can use without stress, is because Respo itself is designed with a deep respect for intuitive use in a restaurant setting. There is no need to layer on complex configurations; the functions you need are always within easy reach. This design philosophy is what enables anyone standing at the floor to engage confidently with guests, without hesitation or stumbling.
Comments from Mr. Mori, Operations Lead, Sushi Rinda
The decisive factor for us with Respo was that, from an early stage, the platform had a reliable mechanism in place for collecting cancellation fees. On top of that, Respo doesn't charge referral fees to the restaurant — a stance that sets it apart. While many gourmet platforms are oriented toward the diner side, Respo has always had, from the very beginning, a posture of standing alongside the restaurant. Looking back now, this positioning is one of the biggest reasons we have been able to trust Respo over the long term.
What has stayed with me from Respo's earliest days is that they walked alongside us — not just in terms of features, but in terms of support. It wasn't "here's the tool, we're done"; they genuinely engaged with our situation and our requests, working with us to build something better together. To say that Respo's product evolution has directly driven our restaurant's own step-up is, honestly, not an exaggeration.
Comment from Yuki Hariguchi, CEO, Hello Inc.
Sushi Rinda is an incredibly important partner to us — one who has been with Respo since our earliest days. The fact that this restaurant, loved by countless guests for over a decade, has grown alongside Respo in step with their own step-up, is something that genuinely means a great deal to us as the people building this product. Mr. Mori's stance — "rather than trying to use every single feature end-to-end, we focus on keeping operations simple enough that anyone can use them in the same way" — is exactly the Respo we aspire to be. In many restaurant environments, the more features a system has, the more complicated operations become, and the more it ends up wearing the floor down. We will continue to listen closely to the voices of long-term partners like Sushi Rinda, walking alongside them on both the product-improvement and operational-support fronts.
Case Study Available
The full story is now available on the Respo website as an interview with Mr. Mori, the restaurant's Operations Lead. We invite you to take a look.
▼ Case Study
"Respo's Growth Directly Drives Our Restaurant's Growth" ── The Sushi Rinda Journey with Respo
