Yamakichi Miso and Soy Sauce Brewery Store

What Is the Yamakichi Miso and Soy Sauce Brewery Store?

The Yamakichi Miso and Soy Sauce Brewery Store (ヤマキチ味噌醤油醸造元店舗, Yamakichi Miso Shōyu Jōzōmoto Tenpo) is a single-story timber shop building in Ishiwaki, Yurihonjo City, Akita Prefecture, built around 1916 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on February 27, 2023. It faces south onto Ishiwaki Street, just west of the main house. The building covers 80 square meters and was renovated in 1963 and again in 2021.

The roof is a Yosemune-zukuri hip roof, sloping down on all four sides, yet the entrance is on the short end in the Tsumairi manner. It is roofed in sheet metal, with a small canopy over the front. The Yamakichi Store is the building that links the street to everything behind it: it joins the main house on one side and the factory buildings at the back.

Why It Was Registered

The Yamakichi Miso and Soy Sauce Brewery Store was listed as contributing to the historic landscape of the country, under registration number 05-0236. The Agency for Cultural Affairs values it as a shop that, together with the main house beside it, shapes the historic look of the street.

Inside, the building splits cleanly in two. The west half holds a reception counter, an office and a parlor for visitors. The whole east half is a Doma, an earthen-floored passage running straight back from the street. Yurihonjo City gives its length as about 20 meters, and the Agency describes it as the main route to the main house and the factory buildings.

Greeting customers, keeping the books and moving people and goods through to the back all happened in this one building. The Council for Cultural Affairs summed it up the same way: an earthen passage and an office, connected to both the main house and the factories.

What to Look For

From the street, compare the roof of the Yamakichi Store with the main house next door. The house shows its steep gable end; the store answers with a quieter hipped roof and a small canopy. Two buildings with two jobs, and the difference shows in their rooflines.

Inside, look up. Earthen passages in Japanese merchant houses are often left open to the rafters, but here the entire passage has a Saobuchi-tenjō, a board ceiling carried on thin, evenly spaced battens. It runs the full 20 meters toward the back.

A photograph in the Agency's database, taken from the passage, shows the office opening directly onto it, with the counting room and the corridor side by side.

Visiting the Store

The front of the Yamakichi Miso and Soy Sauce Brewery Store can be seen from Ishiwaki Street. Standing on the south side of the street, you see the store on the left and the main house on the right.

There is no announced walk-in access to the interior (checked September 28, 2026). The brewery takes visits by reservation, booked by phone on weekdays from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Ask when booking whether the passage and office can be seen and where to check in on the day.

Directions to the brewery and booking details are on the Yamakichi Miso and Soy Sauce Brewery page.