Ninety percent of the restaurants that open in Japan go out of business within five years. It's tough, so those that survive must have something special. This week's "Nichiyo Big Variety" ("Sunday Big Variety"; TV Tokyo, Sun., 7:54 p.m.) is about "famous restaurants" that have gone out of business for one reason or another but were then resurrected.
The owner of a ramen restaurant in Hiroshima had to close his establishment after he suffered a stroke, but the joint was bought by a man who has been a regular customer for 25 years and who plans to reopen it. There's also a bakery in Akita famous for rice-flour bread that closed some time ago. A carpenter who knows nothing about baking bought it and plans to make the same kind of bread.
SMAP leader Masahiro Nagai is a noted sports fan and puts his expertise to the test on the three-hour special "Gogai Scoop Neraimasu" ("Aiming for an Extra Edition Scoop"; TV Asahi, Tues., 7 p.m.).
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