Yoshinoya D&C Co. said Monday that sales grew 9.6 percent in June from a year earlier, marking the first upturn since November 2002.
The restaurant chain attributed the recovery to the popularity of its combination meals, launched in early June, featuring grilled beef, ginger-flavored fried pork and other items. Sales of the new dishes are doing well even though they are more expensive than other items, including pork-on-rice bowls.
Yoshinoya was once the nation's No. 1 provider of "gyudon" beef-on-rice bowls until it pulled the dish from its menu in February 2004, squeezing its bottom line. The dish was pulled after the company ran out of U.S. beef, which Japan banned after the U.S. declared its first case of mad cow disease.
The company registered a group net loss of 758 million yen in the business year to February, incurring its first loss in 24 years on the absence of its popular beef-on-rice bowls.
But Yoshinoya said it expects to secure a consolidated net profit of 150 million yen in the current year on the strength of the new menu items.