At the forefront of Respo utilization by a multi-restaurant group that includes Kyoto’s Michelin one-star restaurant “Tomikoji Yamagishi”
Located on Tomikoji Street in Kyoto, the Japanese restaurant “Tomikoji Yamagishi” has maintained its Michelin one-star rating for nine consecutive years. The group now operates eight locations in Kyoto and Tokyo, expanding into multiple formats including traditional Japanese cuisine, kaiseki hot pot, izakaya, and yakiniku.
The Yamagishi Group had previously faced challenges with its former third-party ledger system, particularly in integrating with reservation platforms and sharing customer information across the group. By introducing Respo, they have achieved more efficient operations across multiple locations, as well as “optimization” tailored to each restaurant—combining tools such as mobile ordering and payment terminals.
We spoke with members of the Kyoto Yamagishi Group about the changes they’ve seen since implementing Respo and the unique ways they are making use of it.
Creation date: 2026年5月28日
Update date: 2026年5月28日
Table of contents
“Hospitality tailored to each and every guest” — The current state of a multi-format group
— First, please tell us about “Tomikoji Yamakishi” and the Yamakishi Group.
"Tomikoji Yamakishi" is a Japanese restaurant that opened in October 2015 after renovating a 130-year-old row house on Tomikoji Street in Kyoto. We welcome our guests at counter seats only, with a single set-course menu. We were awarded one star in the 2017 edition of the Michelin Guide Kyoto/Osaka, and thanks to our guests we have continued to retain our star every year since.
“Providing hospitality tailored to each and every guest” is the shared philosophy of our entire group. We carefully accumulate guest information such as birthdays and anniversaries, allergies, past visit history, and even preferences for alcoholic beverages.
What kinds of stores does your group operate?
We currently operate a total of eight locations in Kyoto and Tokyo. In addition to our main restaurant, Tomikoji Yamagishi, we have Nomikoji Yamagishi, Nijo Yamagishi, Gion Yamagishi, Yakiniku Yamachan, and Kyoen in Kyoto City. In Tokyo, we have Ginza Nomikoji Yamagishi, which opened in November 2023, and Tomikoji Yamagishi Azabudai Hills, which opened in January 2024.
Our business styles range widely—from Japanese cuisine to hot pot kaiseki, izakaya, and yakiniku—but at the core, we operate with the desire to offer each and every guest, at each of our restaurants, a time that makes them feel, “This is exactly what makes Yamakishi special.”
Ledgers fragmented by each store. As the number of locations increased, the burden on staff grew heavier.
— Before implementing Respo, how were you managing reservations?
We used to use a reservation ledger service from another company. We received bookings from multiple reservation platforms, but with the system we had at the time, the platforms and the ledger weren’t linked. That meant our staff had to manually re-enter every booking from each platform into the ledger.
Manually re-entering everything is quite a lot of work…
Exactly. Since there are so many fields to fill in—date and time, number of people, name, seat type, course, remarks, and so on—input mistakes were bound to happen. Especially on days when we were flooded with reservations or when new staff were handling them, we often heard people say they were worn out from constantly double-checking everything.
To be honest, I used to spend a lot of time getting distracted by data entry work before I could actually focus on cooking as a chef.
— Were there any other challenges as well?
Another major issue was that we weren’t able to share customer information between the group’s locations. For example, even if a customer who often visits “Tomikoji Yamagishi” makes a reservation at “Ginza Nomikoji Yamagishi,” we wouldn’t realize it was the same customer until the day they arrived.
For our customers, it’s all just “the same Yamakishi Group,” so ideally we want the way we welcome them to be coordinated across the board. However, because each location kept its own separate ledger, we’d long felt that we weren’t fully able to make use of the group-wide ‘accumulation’ of knowledge and relationships. When we only had two or three locations, the on-site teams’ efforts were enough to manage, but as our number of stores and business formats expanded, including our move into Tokyo, we began to feel we were reaching our limits.
Even with multiple locations and business formats, we can now operate without confusion.
— After introducing Respo, what was the first change you really noticed?
The clearest benefit is that we no longer have to log in to each booking platform separately. Because Respo links the booking platforms with the ledger, we don’t need to open each platform’s management screen one by one—almost everything can be done directly within Respo.
—We also heard that it was effective in situations where you needed “help.”
Yes, this is a change that has been especially appreciated by the on-site staff. Within the group, it’s common for staff to go help out at other stores. Previously, they had to get the login details for the media used at the store they were supporting and log in again, which created extra work.
Ever since we introduced Respo, as long as I log in with my own account, from the moment I go in to help at another store I can check and manage that store’s reservations just like I do at my own. Getting rid of the situation where “the days I go in to help are the most stressful” has been an even bigger change than I imagined.
— I also heard that the way Respo is used differs from store to store.
Exactly. At the Yamagishi Group, we implement Respo’s suite of products in different combinations to match each store’s business format. The most distinctive example is “Nomikōji Yamagishi,” where, in addition to reservation ledgers and site controllers, they use the full set: POS, payment terminals, and even mobile ordering.
— Why did you choose the full course at “Nomkoji Yamagishi”?
At Nomikōji Yamagishi, guests first enjoy our standard chef’s choice course, and then, depending on their mood and how hungry they are that day, they can add their favorite dishes and drinks à la carte. We wanted to reduce as much as possible the inevitable “idle time” that occurs when staff have to come over to take each order, or when customers are kept waiting at the time of payment—by using mobile ordering and payment terminals.
After introducing the system, our staff are no longer overwhelmed with taking orders and handling payments, and can focus much more on what we truly value: providing a comfortable dining experience and having conversations with our guests. It feels like Respo is working behind the scenes to create more of that hospitality time that the Yamakishi Group has always cherished—time spent tailoring the experience to each customer’s pace and preferences.
—There are also on-site changes that don’t easily show up in the numbers, aren’t there?
Yes. What our on-site staff all say in unison is that “human errors have decreased” and that they feel “much more at ease mentally.” Since we no longer have to re-enter information by hand, booking mistakes such as wrong headcounts or incorrect dates almost never occur anymore. And because customer information is shared across the group, situations where staff on-site are unsure each time, wondering “Is this the customer’s first visit?” have been greatly reduced.
The time and energy we used to spend on “double-checking” and worrying whether we’d made a mistake has been transformed into time we can devote back to our cooking and our customers. Customers can’t see this part, but I feel it’s directly connected to the overall quality of our service.
A system that keeps the “Yamagishi quality” unchanged even when the restaurant changes
Please tell us how Respo is used in a way that’s unique to the Yamakishi Group.
We’ve refined how we actually use Respo’s standard features to fit our own operations. Here are two representative examples.
The first feature is the “color‑coded management” of birthdays and allergy information. Among the customer details in Respo, we handle particularly important items using colors. Customers with birthdays or anniversaries, customers with allergies or ingredients they dislike, and customers who require VIP treatment—each group is assigned its own color, and the same color rules are shared across all stores in the group.
The colors are not just markers; each one is paired with an operational rule, such as “if you see this color, you must always share the information with the kitchen” or “for customers marked with this color, the manager will personally greet them at least once.” Because these same color rules run on the same ledger system, Respo, the “Yamakishi quality” can be consistently maintained even when the store location changes, which has a significant impact.
— And what is the second one?
We “use different Respo product configurations” for each location. For kaiseki-style restaurants like “Tomikoji Yamagishi,” we focus on the reservation ledger and customer management, and since it’s a course-only restaurant, orders are handled on-site through staff hospitality. For izakaya-style places like “Nomikoji Yamagishi,” as I mentioned earlier, we use the full set: site controller + POS + payment terminal + mobile ordering. For locations that mainly rely on multiple media channels, we prioritize centralizing inventory across those channels, with the site controller as the core.
Our real feeling is that not rigidly deciding that “all stores in the group must operate in exactly the same way” actually leads, in the end, to a better customer experience and a more manageable workload on the front lines. In cooking, it’s important to “choose the optimal number of steps for each ingredient,” and we believe the same applies to systems as well.
I hope you will continue to be a partner who conveys the voices from the field.
— What does Respo mean to the Yamagishi Group?
For us, Respo is a tool for the people who use it, not something that is merely used, so we hope it will continue to be a partner that listens to voices from the field and keeps evolving into an even better service.
— Lastly, could you share a message for restaurant owners who are considering implementing Respo?
The more locations and business formats a company operates, the better Respo’s design fits—because it lets you see the entire group in a single ledger while allowing each store to choose only the products it needs. Conversely, even for a business starting with just one location, simply linking the booking channels with the ledger should greatly reduce on-site mistakes and stress.
Technology is not something that destroys the traditions of Kyoto cuisine or the unique worldview of each restaurant; it is the foundation that supports them from underneath. I’d like Respo to continue providing that kind of behind-the-scenes support from here on as well.