The vending machine at Hiroshi Nishitani’s Tokyo ramen restaurant has been reliable for a decade. Customers feed it money, and it prints out their orders while he makes fresh noodles in the kitchen. The food is served within minutes once the customer delivers the order to the pair of cooks at the counter.
But the machine’s days are numbered. Japan is set to introduce a new set of bank notes this summer, something it does every 20 years or so to thwart counterfeiters. The machine, already too old to accept recent coin designs, won’t accept the new bills, Nishitani said.
"There’s nothing wrong with the vending machine,” he said, expressing frustration with the need to buy an expensive new unit compatible with the new notes.