Visiting Nishioka Fish Market / Ideal Laundry Building
Japantown is one of San Jose's most distinctive and cherished neighborhood business districts. Japantown and its surrounding neighborhood have a rich history and equally rich architecture to match, as well as some great 1920's California tile.
The above image and a blog entry by Ralph Pearce can found https://www.sjpl.org/blog/looking-back-will-japantowns-nishioka-building-survive
The brick building located on N Sixth St.was built in 1929 by local laundryman Ichimatsu Tsurukawa for the purpose of running Ideal Laundry Co. The company may not have done as well as expected and was sold to his former employee Ben Ragsac, who move the company to a smaller location up the street.
K. Inukaui Co. purchased the building in 1937. The company sold agricultural supplies to the local farmers. In 1942 during the Japanese Internment, the building was home to International Barber Shop owned by F.B. Almojuela. It changed hands again in 1945, becoming the home of Peralto Taleforo Restaurant. Within a few years, it was back to being a barber shop, now owned by Frank Kurotsuchi. In 1949 Nishioka Brothers’ Fish Market and Grocery Store began to occupy the building.
Nishioka Brothers’ Fish Market and Grocery Store was the last company to reside in the building and it has sat empty for over a decade. While cataloging the tile I happened to meet the owner and he is in the process of renovating the building and hopes to use it for music venues. Let us know if you have more information on the tile as we do not know the manufacturer.
The following links supplied the information for the above blog post.
http://www.californiajapantowns.org/sj/ideallaundry.html
https://www.sjpl.org/blog/looking-back-will-japantowns-nishioka-building-survive
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