Mitsuwa Marketplace
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mitsuwa Marketplace ミツワマーケットプレイス |
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| Type | Private |
| Founded | 1972 |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California |
| Area served | California Illinois New Jersey |
| Industry | Retail, Food court |
| Products | Japanese cuisine |
| Website | http://www.mitsuwa.com/ |
Mitsuwa Marketplace (ミツワマーケットプレイス?) is a growing Japanese American supermarket chain, with locations in California, New Jersey, and Chicago.
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[edit] Store locations
[edit] Edgewater, New Jersey
The Edgewater, New Jersey store is located on 595 River Road. It has a food court (including an Italian Tomato restaurant and a sushi bar called Daikichi-zushi), a bookstore owned by Sanseido company, a gift shop selling Bape clothing and golf clubs, a video store that carries DVDs and Laserdiscs of movies and a store selling Japanese ceramics and denki-gama, making Mitsuwa more of a mini-mall than a traditional supermarket. It is a very tiny taste of what current Japanese multi-story malls, or subway stations, are like. The marketplace is usually also open on holidays.
The supermarket section sells a lot of fresh produce and certified Angus beef, as well as Japanese drinks and snacks such as Yakult, Calpis, Ramune, Ikechi Shrimp Chips, Pocari Sweat, Pocky, Pretz, and Japanese liquor such as Sake, and Shōchū.
The Sanseido bookstore section sells Japanese novels, job applications, children's books, manga, and imported magazines (including dozens of Japanese fashion magazines) such as Weekly Shonen Jump and Disney Fan, and also the popular monthly Japanese heavy metal magazine BURRN!, and localized versions of American magazines such as National Geographic.
There is also a kiosk that sells Ito En tea and another that sells Japanese sweets such as manju, mochi, Inja, and other foods.
In addition, the New Jersey location runs an exclusive shuttle bus between the store and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. The bus is intended for Mitsuwa customers only and does not make any stops on its route.[1]
[edit] Chicago
The Chicago-area store is located at 100 E. Algonquin Road in Arlington Heights, Illinois, part of a number of Japanese businesses located in Arlington Heights, and opened in 1991. The store is open 365 days a year[2] from 9 am to 8 pm. Mitsuwa is the largest[citation needed] Japanese Marketplace in the Midwestern US. The Chicago store is one of two that are located east of the Rockies. This Mitsuwa location, like those in other states, was formerly known as Yaohan. "True World Market" has a sister store, called "One World Market" that remains open in Novi, Michigan, near Detroit.
The food court has many traditional foods, such as sushi, tempura, noodles, etc. It is made of the Otafuku-tei, Kayaba, Santoka Ramen, Jockey Express, Daikichi Sushi, Pastry House Hippo, and Mama House restaurants. Mitsuwa also has a travel agency named JTB and Suzuki Realty, a Japanese realty. There are two entertainment shops in Mitsuwa Chicago, JBC Video, a Japanese video rental store, and Sanseido Book Store, a Japanese book shop. A cell phone store, Galaxy Wireless, is also located at the Chicago Mitsuwa.
Mitsuwa Chicago had a china store called Utsuwa no Yakata. This store is closed as of April 1, 2006. Sanseido Bookstore expanded into the area previously owned by that china store.
There also was a Japanese toystore called J1Toys - Japanese Toys & Gifts. It was evicted out of the Mitsuwa complex due to disagreements between its owner Mr. Kuma Ichiro and the Manager manager of Mitsuwa Takai, related to money. J1toy moved to its alternate location until it went bankrupt from poor location and a lack of consumer spending. To make things worse, Kuma Ichiro is currently on the run for tax evasion, and his prized Corvette that he could not drive due to an DUI is gone from his residence that was famous for anyone who lived at his former dwelling of Ashton Heights.
The location also has two personal care shops, Shiseido, a Japanese cosmetics store, and Super Health, a vitamin and other health supplement store.
[edit] California
Mitsuwa has 7 stores in 3 metropolitan areas in California.
- Los Angeles area
- Costa Mesa – 665 Paularino Ave
- Little Tokyo – 333 S. Alameda St
- Santa Monica – 3760 Centinela Ave
- Torrance – 21515 South Western Ave
- San Gabriel – 515 W Las Tunas Dr
- San Diego area
- San Diego – 4240 Kearny Mesa Rd #119
- San Jose area
- San Jose – 675 Saratoga Ave
