At some ramen shops in Japan, diners first buy a meal ticket from a vending machine, hand it to staff and then wait for a seat. Osaka Metro NiNE’s visitor guide notes that popular ramen shops often have outside lines and that some use ticket machines. Sapporo’s official tourism guide likewise explains that customers at machine-equipped restaurants buy a ticket before sitting down. At busy shops, the order queue and the seating queue become consecutive stages.
Reaching one bowl of noodles may involve more than one wait. The diner commits money and an order first, then returns the body to the line. The machine removes cashier work, but it does not remove the anticipation created by a popular counter with limited seats.