With all its chain stores, massive shopping emporiums and incredible number of convenience stores, it’s arguably amazing to simply see small shops in Tokyo, let alone find some that are actually surviving. Yet survive they do, and in surprisingly healthy numbers, although how successfully many of them are soldiering on is something else altogether.
But either way, this fella, and quite possibly his father before him, has no doubt been making and selling tofu for more time than he’d care to remember. And fingers crossed he’ll be able to continue for many more years to come, but whether the business will be able to do so when he’s decided to call it a day, is considerably more debatable.
brixter says
Love the photo.
Lee says
Thanks brixter!
Joel says
I know that feeling, the same happenig here. Just big-no-heart stores….
In my hometown there are also lots of old stores, the feeling that they have inside it’s just something undescribable with words. And yeah fingers crossed here I just hope the children of their respective owners keep this, uhm, how to say, notable and traditional business alive too. It’s great when you enter too and remember little silly things you bought many time ago and all the people you entered with. That’s a nice feeling I guess.
rikshaw says
Is this maybe in Tsukishima?
Lee says
No, it was somehwere around the Kodaira area.
My Kafkaesque life says
Do they have stinky tofu in Japan?
Lee says
Nah. Or at least not in your regular supermarket/restaurant.
Anonymous says
What’s up with the specter-like image in the top window? Is it intentional?
Lee says
No way, I hadn’t seen that at all. But now you’ve mentioned it, I can see it clearly. That’s really quite freaky. I can’t stop looking at it!
Pham Thi Thu Thuy says
Hello
I am a 50-year-old Vietnamese lady, I am still now working for a real estates company in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
I would like to learn how to make clean tofu and open a traditional and small tofu shop which provides fresh products from tofu on a daily basis.
Pls. kindly help if you know any family shop that provide courses for tofu.
Thank you very much.
T.Thuy
(P.S. I can not speak any Japanese, but I can speak English very well (Interpretation level)