menu is closing. One last round of new-user coupons
① This is a closing-down play, not a long-term tip. After September 30 the account is dead weight.
② You almost certainly will not use all ¥8,000 unless you already order delivery regularly. Section 4 runs the numbers with the minimum spend and delivery fees included.
③ The referral campaign may end before the service does. Companies winding down usually shut off new-user promotions first. If you want it, do it early.
- What happened: KDDI’s announcement
- Every deadline, in one table
- Why signing up now still makes sense
- The honest math: what ¥8,000 actually saves you
- Enter the code in the right order, or lose it
- Six ways people waste the offer
- Where to move after menu closes
- Housekeeping before the shutdown
- Why food delivery keeps failing in Japan
- FAQ
- The short version
What happened: KDDI’s announcement
On August 19, 2026, KDDI announced that its subsidiary menu Inc. will stop offering the food delivery service “menu” and that the company itself will be dissolved and liquidated. This is not a pause or a handover to another operator — the business is being wound up.
KDDI’s stated reason: after reviewing “changes in the competitive environment surrounding the food delivery market and the outlook for the business,” it decided to end the service from the standpoint of optimally allocating management resources. To handle customers, partner restaurants and delivery crew cleanly through the wind-down, KDDI will first buy out all remaining shares from co-operator Rayzon Holdings and make menu a wholly owned subsidiary.
For context, menu was not a marginal player: over 91,000 partner restaurants and delivery coverage across 33 prefectures, plus takeout ordering. A service at that scale closing tells you a lot about the economics of this market — more on that in section 9.
Every deadline, in one table
“Ends September 30” is only the outermost line. Features switch off in stages, and mixing them up is how people lose coupons they were counting on.
| Item | Cutoff | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Regular delivery orders | Sep 30, 20:00 | Judged at the moment the order is accepted. Don’t leave the last day until evening |
| Scheduled (advance) orders | Sep 23, 20:00 | A full week earlier than regular orders — the most commonly missed date |
| Coupons you already hold | Sep 30 | Even if a coupon says it expires on or after October 1, it stops working on September 30 |
| Ponta Pass menu benefits | Sep 30 | Free delivery and member coupons end the same day |
| menu Smart Pass / menu pass | No auto-renewal from Sep 1 | Contracts started by August 31 end as each one-month term expires |
| Online crane game “Takoyaki Party” | Sep 30 (planned) | Officially flagged as possibly ending earlier |
| Cancellations/refunds for missing items | Oct 7, 23:59 | A one-week window stays open after the service itself is gone |
The operator has already warned that if delivery quality can no longer be maintained, some areas will stop accepting orders before September 30. The later it gets, the more likely your own area closes early. Starting soon beats racing the end of September.
Why signing up now still makes sense
The instinct after a shutdown notice is “why bother signing up now.” From a value standpoint the logic runs the other way.
New-user coupons are still being issued, and still at the boosted amount. There are two doors, and you can only walk through one of them:
| How you sign up | What you get | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| Register with nothing entered | ¥6,800 total | — |
| Enter a referral code at registration | ¥8,000 total (boosted) | ¥1,200 more |
In other words, if you were going to register anyway, skipping the code simply throws away ¥1,200. And the code can only be entered once, at registration — there is no way to add it later (section 5).
Registration is free, there’s no monthly fee and no commitment. If you never use a single coupon, you’re out nothing but the few minutes it took to install the app. The real cost is ordering delivery you didn’t actually want just to burn coupons — so read the next section before you decide.
The honest math: what ¥8,000 actually saves you
“¥8,000 in coupons” sounds great, but it is not one ¥8,000 voucher. It is split into several coupons you have to spend across separate orders — the standard structure for delivery sign-up offers, and the reason most people never finish them.
Three hard conditions
Measured on food subtotal only. Delivery fee, tips and support charges don’t count toward it.
And regardless of where day 31 lands, everything dies on September 30. Whichever comes first wins.
Takeout is excluded. You can’t pick the food up yourself to dodge the delivery fee and still use a coupon.
Adding the delivery fee changes the picture
menu’s delivery fee generally runs ¥300–550 per order. The ¥8,000 breaks down as two ¥1,200 coupons plus eight ¥700 coupons — ten in total, and only one can be used per order. Clearing all of them means ten separate orders.
| Coupon | Count | Your cost on a ¥1,500 order | Feel |
|---|---|---|---|
| ¥1,200 off | 2 | About ¥300 + delivery fee | Use these without hesitating |
| ¥700 off | 8 | About ¥800 + delivery fee | Roughly the price of a normal meal |
Totalled across all ten orders:
| Line | Amount | How it’s calculated |
|---|---|---|
| Food subtotal (bare minimum) | ≈ ¥15,000 | 10 orders × ¥1,500 each |
| Coupon discount | − ¥8,000 | If you use all ten |
| Delivery fees | + ¥3,000–5,500 | 10 orders × ¥300–550 |
| What you actually pay | ≈ ¥10,000–12,500 | for roughly ¥15,000 of food |
Fully cleared, that’s a 20–30% discount — not ¥8,000 of free food. And it requires ten orders in about a month, one every three days. Easy if delivery is already part of your routine; unrealistic if you order once or twice a month.
Don’t order food you didn’t want just to clear coupons. The genuinely good value is the two ¥1,200 coupons: on a ¥1,500 order your share drops to roughly ¥300. Those are worth using, full stop.
The eight ¥700 coupons, applied to a ¥1,500 order, leave you paying ¥800 plus delivery — about what a meal costs anyway. Use them when you actually want delivery; let the rest expire without regret.
Can you avoid the delivery fee?
menu had several routes to free delivery — Ponta Pass menu benefits, menu Smart Pass and menu pass. None of them are worth starting now. menu Smart Pass and menu pass stopped auto-renewing on September 1 and are winding down, and the Ponta Pass menu benefits end on September 30 as well. Paying a monthly fee to save one month of delivery charges can easily leave you worse off. Budget for the delivery fee and plan around it.
Enter the code in the right order, or lose it
Sequence matters more than anything else here.
- Get the referral link or code first, then download the menu app (iOS or Android).
- Complete registration with your phone number, email and the usual details.
- Open My Page and find the coupon-code field. Enter the code in half-width characters — full-width input is rejected.
- Confirm the coupons landed. You should see several of them in your coupon list. Skipping this check and ordering anyway is very hard to recover from.
- Now place your first order. Coupons apply automatically once the order meets the conditions; you don’t need to select one manually.
The referral code has to go in before your first order. Once you’ve ordered, the account is no longer “new” and the code won’t register — and menu doesn’t retroactively attach referral benefits to existing accounts. Check your coupon list before you hit order.
Six ways people waste the offer
Takeout doesn’t qualify. Coupons are limited to delivery orders; store pickup is excluded.
Brand-new accounts only. If you’ve used menu before you’re not eligible, and reinstalling won’t reset that.
No retroactive entry. One chance, at registration. After an order it’s gone for good.
Full-width characters fail. Use half-width alphanumerics — easy to get wrong when pasting on a phone.
¥1,500 excludes delivery. When you’re just short, check the food subtotal, not the total.
Your area may close early. 33 prefectures, but coverage is drawn by municipality and may be cut back near the end.
Where to move after menu closes
With menu gone, the field is Uber Eats, Demae-can, and the fast-growing newcomer Rocket Now. Since you’re being forced to switch anyway, collecting the new-user offer wherever you land is the genuinely valuable move here.
Rocket Now: the most generous sign-up offer right now
Uber Eats: still the widest and most reliable
Housekeeping before the shutdown
This part is for people already using menu. A few things are worth confirming yourself rather than assuming they’ll be handled automatically.
| Do this | Why | How |
|---|---|---|
| Confirm your subscription is cancelled | Deleting the app does not cancel anything — billing continues | My Page → “menu pass” → cancel. When it’s done the status reads “未加入” (not enrolled) |
| Spend the coupons you’re holding | They’re void on September 30 and there’s no cash refund | Highest value first. Don’t leave them to the final day |
| Delete your saved payment details | There’s no reason to leave card details in a system belonging to a company being liquidated | Remove them in the app’s payment settings, and glance over your card statement while you’re there |
| Report missing or undelivered items early | The window closes October 7, 23:59 | Support will thin out after shutdown, so sooner is safer |
Why food delivery keeps failing in Japan
menu isn’t the first to go, and probably won’t be the last. The exit list has gotten long:
| Service | Exited |
|---|---|
| foodpanda | January 2022 |
| DiDi Food | May 2022 |
| Chompy | May 2023 |
| Wolt | March 2026 (parent DoorDash pulling back globally) |
| menu | September 2026 (this one) |
The numbers are blunt: menu posted a net loss of about ¥3.8 billion for the fiscal year ending January 2026, with roughly ¥3.7 billion in negative net worth. Structurally, a delivery platform subsidises users with coupons and pays couriers, while restaurant margins are thin to begin with — without enormous scale, the costs never get absorbed. Japan also makes it harder than most markets: for a lot of people the convenience store or supermarket is genuinely faster and cheaper, so the pool of customers willing to pay delivery fees indefinitely is smaller than it looks.
Which also explains why the platforms still expanding are handing out such large sign-up offers. That’s customer acquisition spending, not generosity. As a consumer the sensible response is to take what’s offered during each company’s spending phase — and not to get loyal to any one app. You’ve just watched a service with 91,000 partner restaurants close.
FAQ
Is it too late to sign up for menu?
You can still register while the new-user campaign is running, but the later you start, the fewer days you have. Coupons last 31 days from code entry, and September 30 at 20:00 is the absolute end — whichever comes first applies.
How much does the referral code give, and how does it compare?
A referral gets you ¥8,000 total (currently boosted), made up of two ¥1,200 coupons and eight ¥700 coupons. Registering without a code gives ¥6,800, so the difference is ¥1,200. It’s one or the other — they can’t be combined.
Can I use all the coupons on a single order?
No. They come as ten separate coupons, one per order, and each order needs a food subtotal of at least ¥1,500 (delivery fee excluded). Using them all means ten orders.
Do I get a refund for coupons I don’t use?
No. Coupons aren’t a balance — they simply expire when the service closes and are never converted to cash. Even if a coupon shows an expiry date after October 1, it stops working on September 30.
Can I use coupons on takeout orders?
No. The new-user coupons are delivery-only.
I registered and forgot the referral code. Can I add it now?
No. The code can only be entered during registration, and it must be before your first order. There’s no way to attach it to an account that has already ordered.
I have menu pass. Will it cancel itself?
menu Smart Pass and menu pass stopped auto-renewing from September 1, and contracts started by August 31 end when their term expires. Even so, check in the app that your status shows “未加入” (not enrolled). Deleting the app does not cancel a subscription.
What should I use instead of menu?
For coverage, Uber Eats or Demae-can. For the biggest sign-up offer, Rocket Now — zero delivery and service fees, expanding fast, up to ¥5,000 in coupons via referral. All three offers are independent, so you can claim each one.
The short version
In one line: menu shuts down completely at 20:00 on September 30. Until then, new users with a referral code get ¥8,000 in coupons (two ¥1,200 + eight ¥700), which is ¥1,200 more than registering cold. Clearing all of them takes about ten orders in a month, for an effective discount of roughly 20–30%.
So the decision is simple. If you already order delivery regularly, signing up is free money. If you order once or twice a month, go for the two big coupons and let the rest expire — registration costs nothing, so there’s no downside to that plan. And if you’re an existing user, don’t skip the housekeeping: cancel the subscription and delete your payment details. Nobody is going to do that part for you.
・KDDI Newsroom — official release on ending the menu food delivery service and dissolving/liquidating menu Inc. (August 19, 2026)
・ITmedia Mobile — menu to end service at the close of September; operator to be dissolved and liquidated
・Mynavi News — delivery and takeout service menu to end on September 30
・Impress Watch — menu food delivery service ends, company to be dissolved
・menu official — coupon & campaign information
※ Personal summary, accurate as of August 21, 2026. Coupon amounts and conditions may change; confirm the current terms in the menu app. The referral campaign graphic is official menu material.