In 1928, Fujimatsu Moriguchi, a Japanese immigrant in Tacoma, began selling homemade fishcakes and other Japanese staples from the back of his truck to Japanese laborers in the area. He and his wife Sadako opened a store in Tacoma that they named Uwajimaya, after Uwajima, the town where he had learned the retail business. In 1945, after their incarceration during World War II, the family moved the business to Seattle and built a branch store in Bellevue.

This image shows the Uwajimaya Market at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. The family’s decision to participate greatly expanded the store’s non-Asian customer base. By 1970, Uwajimaya was the largest Japanese supermarket in the Pacific Northwest. In 2026, still family owned, the company has stores in Seattle, Bellevue, Renton and in Beaverton, OR.

Caption information source: “Who We Are: A Legacy of Excellence”, www.uwajimaya.com/who-we-are. Retrieved on August 21, 2026.