<Begin Segment 2>

[Ed. note: seafood display cooler]

TM: -- it's self service.

BF: Uh-huh.

TM: And even the meat used to be that way, but more and more people want self service.

BF: They just want to come in and grab it.

TM: Yeah. And then not this site, but more and more sashimi ready to eat...

BF: Do you find that over the years the type of, the type of seafood that you carry is getting less exotic, as you sort of have to...

TM: Oh, it's probably more exotic, because...

BF: More exotic?

TM: ...because you could fly it in from all over the world.

BF: What about the customers? What, are their tastes getting more sophisticated?

TM: I think the customer base is just expanding so there's different needs and different interests. I haven't really thought of it but I doubt if the average person is more exotic. It's just that we have people coming here that are used to different things.

BF: Ah. More new immigrant groups?

TM: Right. We have people like from East India, and Pakistan-type people, and they call themselves "White Russians." And they were always around but there seems to be a larger number. And they seem to venture into our stores more and more.

BF: And do they just request certain things and that's how it happens, or do you go out and investigate sort of, large groups?

TM: We don't have the room to sell what they, we think they want or need. They seem to come to us because we already have what they want. And we haven't been very good at -- oh, to answer that, we're not catering to them, because first of all, we don't know how.

BF: Right.

TM: Number two, we don't have the space. Korean food is one good example. We should have more variety of Korean things, but we don't from a space point of view. Few years ago, we didn't know what they want. Now we know what they want, but the space is limited.

BF: Uh-huh. I notice a lot of the employees are pan-Asian. I mean, it's not just, of course, Japanese. Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asians. So do you ever get the employees making suggestions on things to carry?

TM: Well, but like I say, we found that these people come because basically they like things Japanese, or some of the traditional things we have, and so... and fortunately, not all the -- there are some core food and produce items that seems to be somewhat universal. But you can't take that lightly. You find that it's not quite true, and yet, you know, you take lemon, for example. It's pretty -- and there's a few other greens that are fairly universal but our Beaverton store seems to have been gaining reputation as a good produce. So we've been attracting, like I say, people from Mideast, India, Pakistan, I think, and countries around there. It's amazing when you go down there, they come in shawls, and they dress so differently, it's interesting. We don't have that in the Seattle store so much, but hopefully in the future when we expand we'll have more. Of course, in Seattle, there are stores that cater to Indians and so, they have specialty stores. Probably more so than smaller communities. But fortunately, also an example, the soyu -- Soya milk?

BF: Uh-huh.

TM: It's viewed as fresh, and it's also viewed if you go to a good Japanese or good Chinese store, it's there. So people looking for Soya milk come to our type of store.

BF: Uh-huh. Because so many Asians are lactose intolerant.

TM: Yeah. It's kind of known that a good supermarket like Asian supermarket carries not only different sizes, but different brands, so one starts to feed on the other. So if, even if you're American, you're looking for Soya milk, you'll come to a store like ours.

BF: Right.

TM: So that's an example of what happens.

BF: Where's the satsumaage we saw being made?

TM: Oh. Let's see, where is our brand? Oh, here's some of it. That's not correct. Where is that?

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.