Restaurant Tenguro Storehouse

The Storehouse in the Far Corner

Restaurant Tenguro Storehouse (料亭天狗楼土蔵, Ryōtei Tengurō Dozō) is a two-storey fireproof storehouse built in the Dozo-zukuri earthen-walled manner in Nakakojicho, Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture, dating from the early Showa period and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 17 November 2015. It has a tiled roof and a building area of 43 square metres.

Its date is given only as somewhere between 1926 and 1945. It stands at the northwest corner of the Tenguro site with its ridge running north to south.

It is 2 ken deep and 4 ken long, entered on the long side (Hirairi), under a gabled roof of pantiles.

Why an Early Showa Storehouse Was Registered

It was registered as number 18-0141 for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs sums up its value simply: it is an early Showa storehouse attached to a restaurant.

Sabae City calls it a storehouse of good quality, citing its wide floorboards and plastered interior, and counts it among the restaurant buildings put in order during the early Showa years.

The move of the Ryotei Building and the construction of the Kitchen Building also happened in those years. Restaurant Tenguro Storehouse probably completed that phase of work, giving the business a place to keep its tableware and equipment alongside a room for guests and a room for cooking. No record of what it actually held was found.

The Loading Porch and the Two Doors

On the east side a deep eave projects to form a kuramae, the sheltered working space in front of a storehouse door where goods could be handled out of the rain.

Only under this porch, the base of the wall is finished in arai-dashi, a render washed while still soft so that the small stones in it stand proud, and scored with joints to look like cut-stone masonry.

There is a second door on the west side under a small sheet-metal hood. With openings on two sides, the building could be reached from either direction.

The roof is framed with sloping rafters in the noribari manner, and the floors are laid with wide boards. The outer walls are white Shikkui plaster, and the interior is plastered as well.

Visiting

The interior of Restaurant Tenguro Storehouse is not open to the public, as Sabae City's heritage page states.

It is also the building farthest from the road. With the Kitchen Building, gate and board fence along the street front, the layout makes it difficult to see the storehouse from outside.

The grounds are private, so please do not go past the gate to look at it.