Page 4 - Downtown Beaverton

4 DOWNTOWN BEAVERTON | Thursday, January 16, 2014

PROFILE

DOWNTOWN BEAVERTON

The international local grocery store

Uwajimaya serves as both a market and a community center

Story by Saundra Sorenson
| Photography by Jaime Valdez

Uwajimaya has become a familiar part
of the landscape along Beaverton-
Hillsdale Highway during the past

15 years. Despite its large and
exuberant marquee, it truly is, as store director

Jack Ayers puts it, a local grocery store.
During the week, anyway.

On weekends, it becomes a destination
shopping experience for Beaverton and metro-
area residents alike, a place to buy specialty

groceries and gifts, where the parking lot
serves as the site of many a community and

cultural festival.
On weekends, The grocery store
it becomes a is largely Japanese in

destination influence, housing a
shopping branch of the Tokyo-

experience
based Kinokunira
for Beaverton bookstore and one of 50

and metro- international locations
area residents for Beard Papa, a bakery
alike, a place
that originated in Japan

to buy specialty and which specializes in
groceries
several varieties of cream

and gifts.
puff. But its product focus
encompasses all Asian

countries, and even the Pacific Rim.
“It’s a mainstream customer base,” Ayers

explains. “We try to encompass more than
just a single ethnicity or a single cuisine — we
really try to do our best to cater to all Asian

cuisines, and everything in between. As much Uwajimaya assistant store director Warren Hutch shows off some of the store’s more exotic offerings to a few of its young customers.
as we can fit in this one building.”
works with a local chapter of Friends of Japan, “They learn how easy it is to transverse
Indeed, Uwajimaya can boast a large Speaking of staying ahead of the curve,
customer base. Warren Huch, assistant store and with the Portland Chinese School for its culinary preferences through food networks Ayers credits the community — and the
popular Chinese New Year event.
and social media,” Ayers explains.
Portland metro area — with being especially
director, estimates they serve 10,000 individual
customers each week.
Large festival turnouts keep the educational These new trends have encouraged the independent.
cultural events going in a city whose population community to break out of traditional patterns “They’re a little bit more adventuresome,
“Fifteen years ago, we never thought we’d
have an annual Hawaiian festival, or annual is more than 10 percent Asian.
of cooking and to explore ethnic cuisine, and culinary-wise,” he says. “That kind of spirit is
Japan festival — actually, we have two annual But it isn’t just those of Asian descent who their own food preferences, with greater gusto.
a little more common here. So we have to be a

Japanese festivals,” Huch says.
shop at Uwajimaya regularly. The store — its “We’re responsive to the world around little bit bolder, I suppose.”
Every year, Uwajimaya partners with inventory and clientele — grows with the us,” Ayers says of how Uwajimaya curates its Interest in a variety of Asian cuisine has been
public’s awareness of its own worldliness, as inventory, “but I think a lot of it is evolution,
the Vancouver-based Ke Kukui Foundation stoked in recent years not only by television
to organize it’s Hawaiian festival. For its Ayers puts it, reflecting a greater consciousness and we try to keep ahead of the curve as much
in the community at large.
as we possibly can.”
Continued on Page 5 >>
summertime Japanese festival, the store