Where is the 25-second ramen vending machine?

The famous machine is at Chuko Tire Ichiba (Used Tire Mart Sagamihara), a vintage vending-machine yard in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, about 40 km west of central Tokyo. The site has roughly 100 working vending machines from the 1960s and 70s, including hot ramen, hot udon, hot toast, and toasted-cheese-sandwich machines. The ramen drops a steaming plastic bowl with cha-shu and noodles in about 25 seconds, for around 400 yen. It is open 24 hours.

What about the canned ramen vending machines?

These are a different, newer product. Several Japanese ramen brands launched canned ramen with real noodles around 2024, sold for around 500 yen at dedicated vending machines. The cans use a lime-based (calcium oxide) self-heating mechanism — the same technology behind self-heating ekiben — that warms the can in roughly 5 minutes after pulling a string. Locations have included Miyagi, Mito (Ibaraki), and selected sites in Tokyo. Akihabara is the easiest place for tourists to find one, but availability rotates.

How does a 25-second ramen vending machine actually work?

The Sagamihara machines store pre-cooked, par-boiled noodles, cha-shu, and broth in chilled compartments. When you insert coins and press the button, a 25-second cycle drops the bowl into a heating chamber, the broth is poured hot, and the noodles are flash-warmed. It is closer to instant ramen reheated by industrial timer than fresh ramen — but fans say the nostalgia is the point, not the cooking technique.

Today I Learned

Japan, apparently, has vending machines that drop a hot bowl of ramen in 25 seconds

At a vintage vending-machine yard in Sagamihara, a 1970s machine drops a steaming bowl of cha-shu ramen in 25 seconds for ~400 yen. Newer canned-ramen machines run 500 yen with self-heating cans.

Published 2026-05-07 · 2 min read · By Daichi

◇ Vintage 1970s ramen vending machine glowing under a corrugated metal roof at a roadside tire shop, plastic ramen bowl dropping into the dispensing slot

A bowl of ramen out of a vending machine in less than half a minute

There is a tire shop, 45 minutes west of Tokyo by car, where the parking lot is full of vintage vending machines under a corrugated metal roof. Most of them are over 50 years old. They sell hot toast, toasted cheese sandwiches, hot udon, hamburgers in plastic, and — the headline act — ramen.

Insert ¥400. Press the button. 25 seconds later, a plastic bowl of cha-shu ramen drops into the slot. Steam rises. The chopsticks are taped to the bowl. It is one of the strangest meals you can buy in Japan.

The fact

There are two distinct things going on here, and tourists often confuse them. Worth keeping straight:

1. Vintage hot-ramen vending machines (1970s tech, still running).

Location: most famously Chuko Tire Ichiba (Used Tire Mart) in Sagamihara, Kanagawa.
Time to dispense: roughly 25 seconds.
Price: around ¥400.
How: pre-cooked noodles, cha-shu, and broth are kept chilled inside the machine. A 25-second cycle drops the bowl, fills it with hot broth, and reheats the noodles.
Where else: the same machines survive in scattered roadside spots across Aichi, Tochigi, and Hokkaido — usually at tire shops, drive-ins, or self-service laundries.

2. Canned ramen vending machines (2020s product).

Price: around ¥500 per can.
Heating: lime-based calcium oxide self-heating mechanism inside the can — the same chemistry as self-heating ekiben. Pull a string, wait roughly 5 minutes.
Where: rotating locations including Miyagi, Mito (Ibaraki), and selected Tokyo sites. Availability moves around.

Why it works this way

A few forces stack:

Vending machine density. Japan operates roughly 2.5 million vending machines — the highest density in the world. Niche formats survive because installation cost is low and the machines run unattended for years.
Vintage preservation as tourism. The vintage Sagamihara yard would not be profitable as a working ramen shop. As a 24-hour roadside attraction with parking, ¥1,000-yen lunches, and a YouTube reputation, it works fine.
Self-heating tech matured. Calcium oxide + water reaches around 90°C in five minutes inside an insulated can. That made canned hot ramen technically feasible without an electric heating element. The cost is the size and weight of the heat pack.
Akihabara as a showroom. Akihabara has hosted novelty vending machines for decades — oden in cans, hot corn soup, soup curry, now canned ramen. Tourists looking for “weird vending machine” content end up there by default, which keeps suppliers paying for the floor space.

Where to see it

Chuko Tire Ichiba / Used Tire Mart Sagamihara (相模原市) — the 25-second ramen yard. Roughly 100 vintage machines, open 24/7.
Sagamihara Tire Mart Kawasaki branch — smaller satellite, similar machines.
Akihabara backstreets (Tokyo) — current canned-ramen rollout sites, plus other novelty drink and food machines.
Kawaguchi Auto Snack Park (Saitama) — another preserved vintage-machine cluster, with hot udon and toast machines from the 1970s.

Closing

In most countries, the vending-machine bowl of hot soup is a logistical impossibility. In Japan, it has been the boring backdrop of a tire shop in Sagamihara since the 1970s. Apparently, all you need is a power outlet, a patient owner, and a country willing to let one corner of the roadside stay frozen in 1976.