It looks like the phone number for 551 Horai’s Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi branch was used as a joke on Asahi Broadcasting’s “Osaka People’s Mystery Culture 8,” which aired yesterday, March 30, from 14:00.
大阪人の謎カル“チャー” 調べてみたらスゴかった“ワォ”！8｜Asahi Broadcasting Television
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What is Osaka People’s Mystery Culture 8?
“Osaka People’s Mystery Culture 8” is the eighth installment of a program that thoroughly investigates the “mysteries” and “mysterious behaviors” of Osaka people. The show features Tamura Kenji and Okada Keisuke as MCs. In this eighth installment, topics included “Why do Osaka people call chicken ‘kashiwa’?” and “What does the ‘551’ in ‘551 Horai’ mean?”
551 Horai’s Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi branch gets used as a joke
On the topic “What does the 551 in Osaka specialty 551 Horai mean?”, the show introduced two reasons.
The first reason was that it came from the phrase “Let’s aim to make this place number one for both taste and service” — koko ga ichiban, leading to 551. The second was that the last three digits of the main store’s phone number were “551,” which is how the name became 551.
When they looked up the phone numbers, they apparently found that out of all 58 551 Horai locations in Kansai, only 19 stores have phone numbers ending in 551.
However, it seems there were three stores whose numbers included 551 somewhere, even though not as the last three digits, and that’s where the Hankyu Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi Station branch was introduced.
The first was the Kashihara Kintetsu branch, whose last four digits are “5511,” meaning 551 appears at the front rather than as the final three digits. The second was the Otsu SA inbound branch, where the last four digits are “5510,” again with 551 at the front. The guests seemed to accept those.
But then, when it came to the Hankyu Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi Station branch, the number was “5541”, and everyone piled on with comments like “What is this? That doesn’t count” and “That has nothing to do with it.”
Tamuken, one of the MCs, tried to force an interpretation:
koko ga ichiban
5541
He tried to make “ga” into “4,” but was called out with “That doesn’t match the wordplay at all,” then kept trying to force it with phrases like “koko yo ichiban (5541).”
By the way, when I looked up the “Nishinomiya Hankyu branch,” its number was “7351”, so it just barely grazed “51.” Maybe as long as it includes a 5 and a 1, that’s good enough.
Come to think of it, there was a vending machine like this in Toda-cho near Hanshin Nishinomiya Station↓
It’s a collaboration between 551 and Suntory.
Even so, the Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi Station branch is in a really convenient spot, so I often end up buying something there. Though when I’m rushing to transfer trains, I can’t stop by at all.
