OKO - Fun Okonomiyaki Bar — Restaurant in Osaka

My partner and I attempted to eat here last night. We waited for over an hour in the queue, and left before getting to the door. Here are my observations:

I wish the ratings accurately reflected the real experience because we would have left much sooner. Getting out of this place seems as hard as getting in. There were people crammed in the entryway corridor, signs, short stools and chains blocking the entrance and exit. Fire and safety concerns? The iconic 200¥ drinks are a “great deal”… but self serve. And you won’t easily wade through the outside queue to get to the tap. I couldn’t. All the people were foreigners. Me too. But this reeks of an over hyped, over rated business to draw in tourists. Great okonomiyaki doesn’t take 15 minutes to make, and based on the wait times it’s at least that. How do I know? When we finally left and walked a block away we waited in a line, were seated, and had our delicious okonomiyaki and drinks in less than 20.

I’ve been veg/vegan and lived in iconic culinary scenes catering to that. I also get It’s hard to be a small business owner in this industry. But factually, you can’t run a business in a 4-5 floor location with one staff member surrounded by iconic world class cuisine of all types.

One person can’t cook, clean, manage the queue, take orders, wash dishes, handle returns and errors without something slipping and falling apart.

There was signage commenting on the long wait times, about hiring staff but deciding that would raise costs too much. Raise rates how much? There are more people than you can handle, waiting for significantly more time than anywhere else in the area.

Sadly, there are more 4 to 5 star ratings for this place than is realistic given these factual circumstances. Most commenting on the great attitude of the owner. So what am I getting? The offer of laughs, cheap drinks, peanuts, and making it DIY?

A story of female ownership? Or I think to keep me there to support a really poorly run business. No amount of support for the owner, including very uncharacteristic Japanese tipping requests, is going to change that the business is not sustainable in this way.

I’m sure the owner is lovely, and trying hard. But millions of restaurants are trying hard and failing. A restaurant is about service and food and this place can’t succeed based on its own constraints. If the food is amazing I promise there’s enough business to run this like an actual business.

Do yourself a favor and think critically about what you’re paying for and immerse yourself in the many other Japanese restaurants that don’t require such an investment in time, energy, and money for so...

Before we got to Kyoto, this place was one of our “must try” restaurants. It was recommended highly on TikTok, instagram, youtube and google by vegan travelers and Osaka locals. Before I review the food, I do want to put a disclaimer out about the wait time. If you are in a time crunch, and dont have time to spare on waiting, get there BEFORE opening to stand in line. This restaurant is incredibly small, and run by the owner alone (more on her later). Because of this, the wait time can be incredibly long especially for parties greater than 2. If you arrive after the capacity is filled, you take a number from a machine and stand in a small stairwell or out on the street in front of the building. When we got there the first night, we stood behind a couple who had been waiting for 50 minutes and a family of four who had been waiting for 2 hours. The couple before us left and gave us their number, and we literally got in 5 minutes later.

The entire place is run by a really energetic, friendly, welcoming owner. She speaks English really well and is super cool. She has decorated and designed the place in her own way making a really unique vibe. It is SO fun, it’s covered in loads of pictures from her life and her customers. She leaves out markers for you to write positive notes on the wall.

But enough about the space, the food is AMAZING. I enjoyed the vegan okonomiyaki. You can customize this with a variety of fresh ingredients. She uses a soy pulp, which kept me full for the rest of the night. I tried to order the large size, and she actually encouraged me to spend less and get the medium. (Which was refreshing after feeling taken advantage of at some places in Japan). It was served on a skillet which it’s cooked on, and she had vegan mayo and other toppings to add to it. The taste was amazing and it wasn’t overly greasy. I also ordered the gyoza and they were the best I had during my entire trip to Japan.

We were such fans that the following night we brought the rest of our traveling group. And we got there 45 minutes before she opened, just to make sure we could get a table. Our friends ordered the non vegan options, and thought it was also one of the best meals they had in the country.

If I could give this place higher than 5 stars I would. It is truly amazing that this entire place is operated and staffed by ONE person. And even with that huge workload, she stays so pleasant and upbeat. It’s truly such a welcoming environment and the food is so satisfying. It is a MUST if you are a vegan traveling or living in Osaka - and it’s also a MUST if you're a...

There is a lot to say about this place: as a friend of mine told me I should try okonomiyaki once in Japan, I set myself to try it once in Osaka, since I couldn’t find vegan ones in Tokyo and Kyoto.

The system works like this: you have a tablet where you select the number of people in your group (1 to 5-6), then you will get a ticket which you can scan the QR code on to be notified via website or email when it’s your turn, while you do something else. Most people don’t understand the system nor want to, they just come back randomly and still see the waiting line.

The food itself was all vegan and absolutely healthy and delicious, you can see the photo of the okonomiyaki with vegan cheese on and several veggies beneath, followed by spraying a bit of vegan mayo (which became a lot but I didn’t photograph it afterwards to pretend I’m healthy) on it and some gyoza afterwards because I needed to try more food from the place and support the owner.

The owner herself is an amiable hardworking person that does everything alone because having more people didn’t make a difference in waiting time, only in costs. Plus she can organize all herself this way and manage the various orders, including asking people to cooperate on not making others wait long in line.

The local itself is full of scribblings from past customers all thanking her for the food, delicious and nice, and there are many information regarding the place too. This is essentially a mini-restaurant with homemade food that does its best to offer quality food that is sustainable yet delicious.

I honestly have lots of admiration for such attitude, but I really was taken aback from the okonomiyaki, and each and every customer praised their own choices too (you can see some photos of other variations). The okonomiyaki is made of Okara, so it’s also gluten-free and less heavy than a flour okonomiyaki.

All drinks are 180 yen, regardless of the type of drink you choose. And you can help the owner by bringing the plates to the side, if I could I would’ve washed them for her from how much she works hard to offer a quality experience.

I can only recommend the place and suggest to be prepared for waiting and the tablet system with notification: I explored dotonbori and the neighborhood while waiting, then socialized with other customers waiting since we all had stories and similar tastes to tell.

Recommended and to be absolutely supported, give it a try to at least know if you would enjoy it while planning...