Sick Kids Benefited From Yakinori’s Welcome Back Deal

A popular Japanese restaurant which used its relaunch in Birmingham city centre to support our sick kids raised £1,000 through a clever curry initiative.

Yakinori Japanese Kitchen, which is situated on New Street, near the well-known ‘floozie in the jacuzzi’ landmark, re-opened its doors on Wednesday 20 November 2024, offering customers the chance to get their hands on Yakinori’s most popular Katsu curry meal for £1, with all proceeds to us.

Yakinori founder, Ali Karakaya, came up with the fundraiser to continue supporting the local hospital after the restaurant’s two-year hiatus while dealing with devastating flood damage.

Ali said: “Kids are the future so it’s always meant a lot to Yakinori to support Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity and we wanted to continue doing so as we reopened. We’re famous for our Katsu Curry dishes so we thought we’d give Birmingham an offer they wouldn’t want to miss – lunch for £1 and the chance to support a fantastic local charity.”

On the day, hungry Yakinori fans turned out in their hundreds for their bargain lunch with Ali having to draft in crowd control to manage the queue along New Street as well as extra staff to form a production line to serve the curries as efficiently as possible.

Ali continued: “We were proud to serve over 600 curries on the day, raising over £600 for the hospital, which we decided to round up to £1,000 to support its poorly children. We’re so grateful to our loyal customers for sticking with us while our Birmingham restaurant was closed and then coming out to make this wonderful donation happen.”

Katie Harris, Corporate Partnerships Officer at Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity, said: “We were thrilled to see Yakinori re-opening in our city and we’re so grateful the restaurant chose to continue its support with this fantastic katsu curry initiative.

“With the proceeds of their £1 curry deal coming to our charity, every single one of Yakinori’s customers on the day contributed to a donation which will go towards supporting the 100,000 sick kids our hospital treats every year.”