Reconstruction
Tokyo’s department stores were transforming food retail in 1925, but the evidence does not support a single event in which Mitsukoshi created the depachika that year. The more defensible history is gradual and multi-city. Mitsukoshi established a food department at its rebuilt Nihombashi flagship in 1914, offering imported confectionery, canned goods, Western liquor and selected Japanese products alongside tea and dried bonito. In Osaka, Takashimaya’s Nagahori store placed a food department in its basement when it opened on October 1, 1922, making it the clearest documented early precursor of the underground department-store food hall.
The mid-1920s nevertheless marked an important stage. After the Great Kantō Earthquake of September 1923, Tokyo department stores rebuilt and enlarged their premises while broadening their appeal beyond an elite clientele. Food sections expanded particularly rapidly. They sold durable groceries such as coffee, biscuits, canned foods, seaweed, tea, sugar, liquor and katsuobushi, but increasingly incorporated prepared side dishes and gift foods. Department stores could draw upon the wrapping skills and seasonal sales calendars developed by former kimono merchants, turning midsummer and year-end gift exchange into markets for attractively presented food.
These stores altered the experience of buying and eating. Merchandise was displayed with posted prices in planned departments rather than negotiated across a traditional shop counter. Customers could browse, rest, attend exhibitions and eat in restaurants serving Japanese and Western dishes. Curry rice, croquettes and cutlets became familiar symbols of urban yōshoku, while department-store restaurants offered women and children a comparatively respectable public setting for dining. The food floor and restaurant were related parts of a larger commercial environment, although they should not be treated as identical institutions.
Several features now associated with depachika appeared later. In 1936 Matsuzakaya’s Nagoya store opened the basement East-West Famous Products Street, assembling named confectioners and specialty-food businesses from several cities. Postwar developments—including Tōyoko Noren-gai in 1951 and the expansion of branded delicatessen counters in subsequent decades—created a clearer lineage toward modern halls filled with regional sweets, bentō, sushi, salads and freshly cooked foods. The word depachika itself became widely prominent only near the end of the twentieth century.
Mitsukoshi was therefore influential in making food part of modern department-store culture, but not the documented sole inventor of the basement format in 1925. The lasting legacy was collective: department stores joined food, service, packaging, seasonality and spectacle. Modern depachika still use that combination to transform everyday prepared food and edible gifts into objects of comparison, discovery and carefully staged desire.
Historical context
Japan was in the final years of the Taishō era and had about 59.7 million inhabitants according to the 1925 census; Tokyo Prefecture had roughly 4.49 million. The capital was rebuilding after the catastrophic Great Kantō Earthquake of September 1, 1923. New streets, reinforced buildings and expanding rail networks helped reshape urban commerce. Ginza gained Matsuzakaya in 1924 and Matsuya in 1925, while major department stores promoted Western goods, restaurants, exhibitions and the ideal of a modern “cultured life.” Japan’s urban consumers encountered imported groceries and Western-style dishes alongside established practices of seasonal gifting and regional food exchange.
Evidence
Written sources
StrongDepartment-store histories, contemporary corporate records and scholarly studies document Mitsukoshi’s 1914 food department, the post-1923 expansion of food sections, and the 1922 basement food department at Takashimaya’s Nagahori store.
Dating
LimitedThe year 1925 belongs to the broader expansion of interwar department-store culture, but no strong source identifies it as the date when Mitsukoshi created Japan’s first depachika.
Geographic attribution
LimitedNihombashi Mitsukoshi was an important site in the development of department-store food culture, but stronger evidence places the earliest clearly documented underground department-store food section at Takashimaya Nagahori in Osaka.
Food identification
ModerateEarly food-department records support sales of imported confectionery, canned goods, liquor, coffee, tea, dried bonito, seaweed and other preserved groceries. The full modern combination of fresh foods, branded regional specialties and extensive prepared-food counters developed over a longer period.
Preparation method
LimitedSources document expanding sales of prepared side dishes and in-house food production after the 1923 earthquake, but they do not establish a precise Mitsukoshi basement menu or preparation system for 1925.
Historical interpretation
ModerateDepartment stores clearly connected food retail with display, service, dining, gift exchange and mass consumer culture. Treating modern depachika as the result of one store or one year is an oversimplification.
Visual reconstruction
InterpretiveA reconstruction showing a modern-looking hall crowded with branded bentō, fresh seafood and regional specialty counters would combine features documented at different dates and should be labeled as a composite rather than a direct view of Mitsukoshi in 1925.
Sources
- 1.Shiroh Ogawa (2015). わが国百貨店における食品売場の誕生と発展. Doctoral dissertation, Hitotsubashi University. doi:10.15057/27286Scientific literature
- 2.Tomoko Kondo (2006). Changes of Restaurants and Grocery Section of Japanese Department Stores during the 1920s–1930s. Journal of Lifology 11, 54–61. doi:10.24528/lifology.11.0_54Scientific literature
- 3.Ai Hisano (2025). Working Like Goldfish: Emotional Labor and the Creation of Modern Consumer Culture in Japan, 1900s–1930s. Enterprise & Society. doi:10.1017/eso.2025.2Scientific literature
- 4.Nagoya City Library (2018). 調査報告書No.70：デパ地下は松坂屋がはじめたって聞いたけれど、それって本当？. Nagoya City Library Reference Service. www.library.city.nagoya.jp/reference/chosahoukokModern synthesis
- 5.Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd. (n.d.). History of the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group. Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings. www.imhds.co.jp/corporate/business/department/hiModern synthesis
- 6.Statistics Bureau of Japan (1925). 1925 Population Census. Portal Site of Official Statistics of Japan. www.e-stat.go.jp/en/stat-search/files?toukei=002Historical primary source
Limitations
- majortitle
The title attributes the birth of the depachika to Mitsukoshi, but stronger research identifies Takashimaya’s Nagahori store in Osaka, opened October 1, 1922, as the earliest clearly documented department store that placed its food section in the basement.
- majordate start
No reliable source located identifies 1925 as the founding date of a Mitsukoshi basement food hall. Mitsukoshi established a food department in 1914, while the documented underground precursor appeared at Takashimaya Nagahori in 1922.
- moderatedescription
The description projects a mature, curated multi-brand depachika format onto Mitsukoshi in the mid-1920s. The first documented basement aggregation of named specialty businesses was Matsuzakaya Nagoya’s East-West Famous Products Street in 1936, with major postwar development following.
- moderatehistorical interpretation
The claimed direct causal relationship between Mitsukoshi’s supposed 1925 food hall and Japan’s modern convenience-food market is broader than the available evidence. Department stores influenced packaging, prepared-food retail and quality signaling, but supermarkets, railway retail, refrigeration, food manufacturing and convenience-store logistics were also major developments.
- minorhistorical attribution
Depachika is a later popular abbreviation and is best used retrospectively for 1920s food departments. Sources indicate that the term became broadly prominent only in the late 1990s and around 2000.
