Yamashita Grocery

I am visiting friends in Santa Cruz for New Year’s and wanted to make ozoni but didn’t have time to shop befor leaving L.A. I found this little store through Unilocal and was able to get all of the ingredients I needed for the soup! Amazing little place for Japanese food essentials! What a special little find.

This is the best (and only) little Asian market in the area. Every Thursday there’s fresh tofu, mochi and tuna. They also have fresh burdock root, nappa cabbage, green onions and sweet potatoes. Everything you need is here: sake, seaweed, rice, seaweed salad, MSG-​free dashi… And I drool over the beautiful serving plates and tea sets. This is a real local treasure. The service is friendly and helpful.

Family owned small town Japanese store. This store is what’s left of the Japanese business community in Pajaro. I’ve come here for over 25 years to get authentic and high quality Japanese foods and ingredients. You can also special order fresh tofu and fish.

Was looking for sushi ingredients near my boyfriend’s house. I was happy to find this little market and get what I needed. A little bit pricier than other places I’ve found, and I was hoping someone might ask if I needed help, but, hey, to find a Japanese market in Watsonville, I wasn’t expecting too much. All good.

Small authentic store. They were very helpful and provided great customer service. The store has the ingredients to make your own sushi. Overall I will continue to shop from them because of their service and products.

This shop is awesome, they have all sorts of great goodies. The staff are friendly and knowledgable. They will literally walk you through every step to take in order to make perfect Udon soup or sushi. Plus they are super sweet to babies. Aaaaaaannnnnnd, they have all sorts of cool dishes, glasses and sake sets. It’s a perfect place for fancy gift giving. Grab a dish, some unique candies, some funky crackers, toss it all in a basket and your family/​friends will be super impressed when you present them with an extraordinary bow tied bounty.

this market is a childhood memories for me and my sister .
Our father would take us there to get all kinds of foods
my dad ate as a child in Hawaii. when we left we always got the rice Candy’s.
I will remember it forever. it is like are family treasure

Has a ton of asian fixings. Is closer than driving to Seaside or San Jose. No complaints. It is what it is and it is local.

Just discovered this little store and it’s great! Tiny store but lots of goodies and certainly covers all the basics of Japanese cooking, a bit of Chinese — especially noodles and sauces, and even some Vietnamese goodies like spring roll wraps. Prices are fair, service was friendly, I found everything I was hoping to find for home cooking. Will be excited to explore more goodies and expand my Asian foods cooking menu at home. Only reason for 4 stars is that there is no fresh produce, just dry, canned, pickled, frozen, deli goods, none fresh.

This place is GREAT! They had everything I needed and more for a sushi party I’m going to have this week. They even have some options of raw fish to buy then and there. A few of the things I needed were cheaper here than at my local grocery store, but some things I got here were cheaper at the store. So you just need to compare before, which I didn’t do because I was in dyer need! the only reason this place wasn’t a 5 star rating was because they only accept cash. Other than that the couple that owns it are very nice and helpful!

Fully satisfied with this little grocery store has everything! and if you do not find what you want, ask them and they try to see if you can get. I also think that should help this local family business :)

They have everything you need to make sushi and miso soup. They are very nice and helpful. The market has been owned by the same family for at least 50 years is what I understand. On thursday they bring in sushi grade fish. From what I understand they used to be a fish market, but like all fish markets there is no longer fish coming in locally. Small local markets like this one are dying off. so support them if you get a chance!

I need some Ranch 99/​Lion Market in my life!
So I found out about this place by googling «Asian Market Santa Cruz.» I needed to get some sea weed and fukiyaki to make some SPAM MUSUBI.
I was happy to find out that there was an asian market in the area. It’s in Watsonville, so it was little ways away from Santa Cruz but not as bad as going to San Jose.
As you’re driving by, you might miss it because it is a small hut-​like building. It’s kind of red, take a look at the picture.
The reason why it’s not quite a four is because they don’t have very many goodies and they seem to over price their goods. The typical asian markets will sell their candy for $ 1.00 while Yamashita will sell it for $ 3.00. It make sense for Yamashita to do this because they have to deal with the whole transportation fees and what not.
The customer service was very nice and very approachable. I’ll definitely be back when I am in a pinch for some japanese goodies.
It’s nice to know there is an asian market nearby.