The origin is given as Yasudaya, in the town of Ogano. According to the third-generation owner, his grandfather Seijiro was running a butcher's shop and opened an eating house alongside it.

Pork loin is beaten out to an even thickness, breaded, and fried in lard, then passed through a soy-based sauce that the shop has been topping up since it opened, and laid over the rice. No egg is poured over the top of it, which is the thing that separates it from a katsudon anywhere else in the country.

It was not called anything in particular at first. It was on the board as katsudon, and that was all.

Then a rice merchant from Chichibu, eating there one day, remarked that with two big cutlets on it the thing looked like a pair of straw sandals, and that they ought to call it warajikatsu-don. A waraji is a pair; that is why there are two cutlets and not one. About twenty years ago motorcyclists riding Route 299 began stopping in, and word spread that the food was good and there was a lot of it. The town has leaned into motorcycles as a way of drawing visitors ever since, and the media followed. The dish was named by a customer, in passing, without being asked.