Hakodate Morning Market

The Hakodate Morning Market dates back to the early postwar years, when food was still scarce and farmers would make their way from rural areas into the city to sell vegetables on the street. A black market sprang up outside Hakodate Station next to the Seikan Ferry dock, and before long fishmongers and even rice peddlers who went back and forth between Hokkaido and Aomori by boat joined the throng. Despite its dubious legal status, the market became the “kitchen” of the city, offering everything from staple foodstuffs to pricier items like melons and crab. Eventually, even tourists started coming.

Rows of restaurants at the Hakodate Morning Market. (1994)

Still, the essence of the market is vegetables picked fresh that morning, laid right on the ground for sale. Every time I put some potatoes on to boil, I remember the delicious spuds I bought from an elderly gentleman, his head wrapped in a white tenugui.

A man hawks potatoes at the Hakodate Morning Market. (1995)

Today, the market boasts some 250 stalls as well as “donburi lane,” where visitors pile bowls of rice high with fresh seafood of their choice like salmon roe, crab, prawns, and scallops.

At Jyūjiya Coffee, a counter-only establishment run by a singular fellow who studied in Britain, much of the clientele is from overseas. I met one British family who had visited the shop for three days straight; after all, the owner speaks English and the coffee is great. The owner admitted to me that some days, the flow of foreign customers is so steady that he does not utter a word of Japanese from the time he opens to the time he closes.

A British family at Jyūjiya Coffee. (2018)

Hakodate Morning Market

Located outside Hakodate Station

(Click to see map)

(Originally published in Japanese.)