This is a bit out of date. These days basically any ATM allows foreign cards, just in time for Japan to finally switch to electronic payments in a big way (in particular PayPay).

American founders aren’t necessarily more malicious on average.

They just end up rewarded after doing shady tricks more often. Whereas in any other country being too devious too often is fatal.

I guess the archetypal example on HN would be Microsoft or Oracle.

Besides the context in the other comments, they pushed the Japanese fresh food angle in a media blitz pretty hard last year (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/business/7-eleven-ceo-ste...). Egg sandwiches seem to be the most reliably available in the contiguous states, but you can also spot egg rolls and onigiri. They're also now bracing to close hundreds of stores and reopen a fraction of that number to match the new model: https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2026/04/17/7-eleven...

It's been fully owned by the Japanese company for over 20 years

As others have mentioned, 7/11 in the US has been owned by 7/11 (Japan) for quite a long time, now.

There's some important organizational differences: Stores in Japan are almost entirely franchisee-operated, while stores in the US are more-or-less split 50% on being franchises or corpo.

It's hard to draw conclusions when they're shaped so differently.

But I can say this: Speedway is a large US chain of gas station/convenience stores, with ~2,800 locations (all of them corpo). They varied a lot; some had hot made-to-order food, some others were limited to roller dogs and baked, frozen pizza that was in many ways indistinguishable from cardboard.

There has never been a time when Speedway was awesome, but there have been times when it was acceptable. It was usually better in the suburbs, and worse in the cities (I've seen some weird shit happen at Speedway stores in cities, but they generally kept up with the chaos).

Overall, I'd give 5/10 -- it was often convenient and generally open 24/7, but at all times any of them could have used a lot of very obvious improvement.

5 years ago, 7/11 bought Speedway. They've subsequently managed to allow it to become even worse. Things are dirty, disorganized, clearly lacking any direction other than that which leads towards dilapidation, and the staff just doesn't appear to care about any of it.

Under 7/11's ownership, my buying habits have shifted from "Hey, there's a Speedway. Let's stop in and get a soda or some coffee, or maybe a sandwich" to "Oh look, it's a Speedway. Let's keep moving."

Their accomplishments here are very impressive.

7/11 Japan has been running the stores in Hawaii for ages, just look there.

Would be great if we could get oniguri in US 7/11s.

I was in 7/11 in the US and they sell egg sandwiches.

coincidence?

The waste generated is also a major challenge. Having fresh food always ready means trashing a lot of meals. In the US there are networks of food banks and such, but it can still be difficult to keep up with the flow of unpurchased food that is no longer fresh.

> but unattended children not so much.

But that's down to larger cultural differences. Japanese schoolchildren probably get less supervision overall than their US counterparts.

Here's a fascinating video I enjoyed that explains how their business model worked (only) in Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3EH4VmxMAo

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Conbini meals only register as "high quality" to you because your comparison point (e.g, American 7-11) is an abysmal excuse for food. The food is, in reality, not that special.