Watami is a Japanese business group known for its izakaya restaurants.
Miki Watanabe first opened an izakaya restaurant under the Tsubohachi franchise in 1984. In 1986, he established the Watami Co. Ltd. Watanabe then operated the izakaya under the Watami brand name in 1992, with the concept of "family izakaya" instead of "pub izakaya", and converted the Tsubohachi branches under his operation into Watami branches. In 2007, Watami had about 625 outlets under nine izakaya and restaurant brands globally.
Watami is also involved in other businesses such as 'organic' farming. In 2002, it set up Watami Farming to provide its restaurants with organic vegetables at low cost as the market price of organic vegetables were eating into its profit margin.