Founded as Yaohan in the 1970s and rebranded to Mitsuwa Marketplace in 1998, this Japanese supermarket chain now operates around a dozen stores across California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Texas. Many locations include a supermarket spanning imported seafood, packaged goods, and fresh produce, plus a food court and retail spaces ranging from travel agencies to Kinokuniya bookstores or sibling Mai Do stationery shops. Orange County’s largest Mitsuwa (Costa Mesa) hosts beef bowl, frozen beer, and Chinese-Japanese restaurants, noodle shops including Sanukiseimen Mugimaru, bakery Hamada-Ya, Ümacha for drinks, matcha/mochi dessert space Ren, and confectionary shop J. Sweets. Irvine’s considerably smaller Mitsuwa has perhaps half the supermarket inventory plus a mini-Hamada-Ya, donut shop Mochill, and a ramen restaurant; LA-area Mitsuwas typically have larger supermarkets, food courts, and retailers.
Until July 2025, Mitsuwa operated in Irvine without challengers, but the opening of a much larger Tokyo Central – owned by Japan’s popular discount retailer Don Quixote – changed the equation, offering comparatively wider selections of imported and ready-to-eat Japanese foods, though most of the latter are produced by the supermarket rather than independently made like Mitsuwa’s vendors. Parking can be a challenge at both OC Mitsuwa stores; seek the under-building lot at Costa Mesa, and the hidden rear lot in Irvine.
