Sapporo food and drink costs: five nights near the Sapporo Prince, ¥65,875
We spent six days in Sapporo in June 2026 — 14 to 19 June, five nights at the Sapporo Prince Hotel — and kept every bill. Food and drink for the two of us came to ¥65,875, or about $440 at ¥150 to the dollar, the rate we use here.
That number is dinner and drinking only. Breakfast is inside the room rate here, so it never reaches a receipt, and the room itself is not in the total. What is in there: five evenings of walking out of the front door and paying for what we ate and drank, plus one travel day that cost nothing at all.
Five paying nights, ¥65,875, works out at ¥13,175 (about $88) an evening for two, or a shade under ¥6,600 each.
The six days
| Date | Where | Bill | |---|---|---| | Sun 14 June | Beer Bar North Island | ¥5,740 | | Mon 15 June | Lungo Carnival honten ¥7,865 + moi ¥6,900 | ¥14,765 | | Tue 16 June | Yakitori S ¥10,600 + PALS ¥4,640 | ¥15,240 | | Wed 17 June | Nepalica | ¥14,800 | | Thu 18 June | Izakaya Chiba ¥9,770 + PALS ¥5,560 | ¥15,330 | | Fri 19 June | flying home | ¥0 | | Six days | | ¥65,875 |
All for two people, on the dates shown. Prices move; these are what we were charged.
The cheap night was the beer-only night
Arrival day. Four large beers at Beer Bar North Island, ten floors up over the Tanukikoji arcade: Lush Line ¥1,280, Glide Drive ¥1,180, and the regular IPA and Session IPA at ¥1,080 each. Two dishes, garlic-pickled nagaimo ¥500 and the chef’s potato salad ¥620. Water was free, and the six lines add up to the bill exactly — ¥5,740, about $38.
That is the shape of a cheap Sapporo evening for us: one place, four drinks, two things to pick at, nothing that arrives on a platter. The same menu photo shows a three-beer tasting set at 200ml a glass for ¥2,000, and a Monday-to-Thursday happy-hour version of it at ¥1,700 between 17:30 and 19:00 with one food order per person. We did not take either — we were already full from the flight.
Which is the part a spreadsheet misses. Before that ¥5,740 one of us had already had a beer in the ANA Suite Lounge at Haneda — the other was taking the day off — and on the plane the cabin crew offered two kinds of sparkling wine to compare, so we did. None of that reached a receipt. Two of the six days ran that way.
The dear nights were the two-stop nights
Three evenings came in between ¥14,765 and ¥15,330, and all three were the same manoeuvre: eat at one place, walk, drink at another.
Tuesday was the clearest. Yakitori S first, where one man grills alone and hands each skewer over the counter as it comes off the fire. We had eleven orders off the grill, most of them ¥280 to ¥330 and the wings ¥550 for two, plus two draft beers at ¥770 each, nagaimo pickled with shiso ¥440 and salt-simmered motsu ¥700. The bill arrives as a single handwritten number with nothing itemised: ¥10,600, about $71.
Adding up what we wrote down gets to ¥6,300, which leaves ¥4,300 — about two fifths of the bill — for the otoshi, the small dish you did not order and pay for anyway, ¥550 on the menu cover, and several glasses of sake we drank and failed to record. Worth knowing before you plan an evening around skewer prices: it is the sake that moves the number.
Then PALS, three floors up in the M’s Building, for two large craft beers at ¥1,650 each, an otoshi of ¥660 for the pair and sour-cream-and-onion fries at ¥680. ¥4,640. Day total ¥15,240.
Thursday worked out almost identically for completely different reasons. At Izakaya Chiba we took the 120-minute all-you-can-drink plan, ¥2,500 (about $17) a head off a list of 55 regional sake, and drank ten glasses off it; singles are ¥590, so the plan roughly paid for itself. The night still ended at ¥15,330, about $102. The plan was ¥5,000 of that, six dishes came to ¥4,340 before tax, and then PALS again for ¥5,560. Cheap sake did not make the evening cheap, because the evening did not end there.
Monday was oysters and whole fish beside the coals at Lungo Carnival honten — a kilo of steamed oysters ¥1,210, herb-grilled mackerel ¥990, buri kama ¥715, two draft beers ¥1,320, two glasses of sake at ¥880 and ¥660, two shochu sodas at ¥660 each, otoshi ¥770 — ¥7,865. Then the wine bar moi, four glasses and a plate of truffle-flavoured fries, ¥6,900. Bordeaux by the glass is ¥750 there and the daily recommendations start at ¥1,000; we drank recommendations, and moi is cash only, which is the one thing about it that can catch you out.
The one-stop night that cost as much
Wednesday we went to Nepalica and nowhere else, and it still came to ¥14,800 (about $99). The Wednesday-and-Saturday dinner set for two is ¥7,980: spiced nuts, salad, stir-fried seseri, momo, a clay-pot biryani finished at the table, hot chai. Two Sapporo Classic drafts ¥1,120, two glasses of wine ¥1,200 — and a bottle at ¥4,500.
That bottle is the whole story of the night. Drop it and the evening is ¥10,300. The two-stop nights were expensive because a second place means a second round of drinks; this one was expensive because of one bottle.
The day that cost ¥0, and the ¥21,731 that did not
Friday we flew home and spent nothing on food or drink. Breakfast at the hotel, where the ikura counter was capping the bowl at two spoonfuls a person so that everyone would get some — refills unlimited, they added, which is a different sentence from the one we wanted. We built the bowl out with tarako, grilled salmon and a salmon-and-yuba roll instead, and called it even.
At New Chitose we sat in the ANA Suite Lounge and one of us suggested a beer. My wife’s answer was that the lounge could wait and the meal on the plane could not, which was correct. So the lounge came to a Hokkaido cheese soufflé, an inari sushi, a glass of kale juice and a coffee, and none of it appeared on a bill.
On board, a 187ml bottle of Famille Perrin Peyre Blanche from the Côtes du Rhône, then a red, with grilled karei, pork saikyo-yaki, and a rice dish of eel and myoga that we both rated — my wife saved hers for last, which is what she does with the thing she likes best. Included in the ticket, the same as the outbound.
What we did spend that day was ¥21,731 (about $145) at ANA FESTA in the airport, on ramen and a Kinotoya cheesecake and a jar of king uni bought because the ikura we go there for had vanished from the fridge in a remodel. That is roughly a third of five nights of drinking, spent at a souvenir counter, and it is not in the ¥65,875 because it was not the drinking.
What the total leaves out
- The room, and breakfast, which is inside the room rate — see what the buffet is like.
- The hot spring bath at the hotel, a paid extra at ¥1,000 per person per day when we checked in April 2026.
- Getting there and back. On the last morning there was no free shuttle at the hour we needed, so a taxi to Sapporo Station and a train to New Chitose; we did not record what those cost.
- The souvenirs above.
Would we spend it the same way again
Yes. The pattern that produced this bill — an included breakfast, a bath, a walk, then one place or two within a few minutes of the hotel — is the reason we booked the same hotel twice in two months, and we would take ¥13,175 an evening again without arguing about it.
One thing we would do differently, and it is a cost lesson as much as a food one. At Izakaya Chiba the staff told us at the table to order everything at the start, because once the room fills the kitchen takes a while. We ordered in stages anyway, and the fried Shiretoko chicken we wanted last was cancelled when the clock ran out on the drink plan. On a timed plan, the ordering is the budget.
If you want a number to plan a Sapporo week around: assume something near ¥15,000 for two on the evenings you go to two places — ours came in at ¥14,765, ¥15,240 and ¥15,330 — and know that one beer bar and two small dishes can give you an evening under ¥6,000.
The places behind these numbers, with what we ordered at each, are in our walking guide to eating around this hotel, which covers this trip and our April one.
Practical bits
- Dates: 14–19 June 2026, five nights, two people. All bills as charged on the day.
- Paid by card at Beer Bar North Island, Lungo Carnival honten, PALS, Izakaya Chiba and Nepalica. moi is cash only. At Yakitori S we did not record how we paid.
- Otoshi appeared at Lungo Carnival honten (¥770 for two), PALS (¥660 for two) and Yakitori S (¥550 on the menu cover, June 2026). Budget a few hundred yen a head before you order anything.
- Tax: at Izakaya Chiba the drink plan is tax-included and the food is not, which added ¥434 to a ¥9,340 subtotal, less a ¥4 rounding discount — ¥9,770 charged.
- The Izakaya Chiba plan is ¥2,500 for 120 minutes, but last order lands at 90 — the catch, and the food waits, are in the full write-up.
- Nepalica’s biryani set is Wednesday and Saturday dinners only, ¥7,980 for two (June 2026).
- North Island’s tasting sets were on the menu we photographed on 14 June 2026: ¥2,000 for three 200ml glasses, or ¥1,700 Monday to Thursday between 17:30 and 19:00 with a food order per person, guest beers excluded.
- English menus, smoking rules, and whether the places we paid in cash also take cards: we didn’t check.
The number we keep coming back to is the ¥21,731. Five evenings of sitting down near the hotel, eating grilled things and drinking beer together, cost about three times what we handed over at a souvenir counter on the way to the gate.
Facts checked 2026-08-19. Prices, hours and menus are what we saw on our visit; they change. Nothing here was sponsored or comped.