SEMBIKIYA


Sincerity is delivered by a Sembikiya gift.
There is a custom in Japan to give gifts of fruit to people who are important to you.
Nihonbashi Sembikiya, a venerable fruit shop, selects and delivers the best fruits products available to those you care about.

About Sembikiya

Established in 1834 (the 5th year of the Tempo era), Sembikiya is Japan’s oldest fruit shop. It currently operates 14 stores, many of them concentrated in the Tokyo area, with its main store located in Nihonbashi Mitsui Tower, which houses the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo.
With 170 years of long and brilliant history, Sembikiya has been providing high-quality fruits to its customers ever since it was established.
It is up to you whether you will enjoy the luxurious fruits in their best season at home or send them as a gift to those who are special to you.

History

In 1834 (the 5th year of the Tempo era) toward the end of the Edo Period, the founder of Sembikiya, Benzo Ohshima, who was then a samurai in Senbikinogo, Saitama-gun, Musashinokuni (today’s Senbiki in Koshigaya-shi, Saitama), set up a store, putting up a sign which read Mizugashi Yasuuri Dokoro, which literally means “fruits discount store,” in Fukiya cho (today’s Ningyo-cho 3-chome in Nihonbashi) and began selling fruits and vegetables. This was the origin of Sembikiya.

In 1867 (the 3rd year of the Keio era), the store was relocated to today’s Nihonbashi-Honcho (Muro-machi). There, the third generation of the founding family, Daijiro Ohshima, began importing fruits from overseas and focused his efforts on improving the quality of domestic fruits. As a result of his hard work, Mizugashi Yasuuri Dokoro became Japan’s first fruit shop and formed the foundation of Sembikiya. 

In 1887 (the 20th year of the Meiji era), Sembikiya opened a fruit restaurant that became the forerunner of Japan’s first Fruit Parlor, which is a Fruit Café. Following the first restaurant, many new shops were opened in department stores and shopping buildings housing train stations, where many people gathered. In addition, during the time of Daijiro and his son, certain parties outside of the family were allowed to use the name of Sembikiya for their businesses and today’s Kyobashi Sembikiya and Ginza Sembikiya were born.

In 1960 (the 35th year of the Showa era), Daijiro Ohshima, the fifth president, took the helm of the business. He put his focus on expanding the store network and in April 1971 (the 46th year of the Showa era) he built and opened the main shop, which remains the flagship store to this day.

SEMBIKIYA

Around this time, Sembikiya began operating restaurants and sweet factories in addition to their Fruit Parlors and truly became the largest general fruit shop in Japan. Over the past few years, new stores have opened in Tokyo Station, as well as in the main terminals of Haneda and other airports and today Sembikiya’s products are also enjoyed as a souvenir of Tokyo. Since the renovation and reopening of the Nihonbashi Flagship store in Nihonbashi Mitsui Tower in 2005, the store has been filled with even more customers than ever before.



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