Akira Ito × Chisako Takashima

A vegetable factory and restaurant under one roof. Local consumption of local food within one building.

Takashima

You have a vegetable factory!?

Ito

On the eleventh floor, which is called the FARM, we make the hydroponic frilly leaf lettuce that is served at our restaurant on the twelfth floor. We can see the vegetables grow through windows, for which we used the window frames from the old Main Store building. Would you like to have a look?

Takashima

You are right! I remember these window frames from the old building.

Ito

I was advised by Mr. Yamamoto from Tokyo Gallery that I should keep old things too. By the way, my first encounter with a vegetable factory was as a high school student in the U.S. Disney World, in Florida, had a vegetable plant. I had wanted to start my own vegetable factory since then.

Takashima

I wasn’t aware of that. It is difficult to imagine vegetables being grown right beside an attraction.

Ito

What you are drinking now is the strawberry lemonade that we offer at our drink bar on the first floor. It contains pureed strawberries, which are also grown here.

Takashima

This is delicious! It has a luxurious savor, that would surely withstand competition from the fancy juice served at expensive fruit parlors. It almost makes me forget that I am at a stationery store.

Ito

Our concept of selling stationery is basically unchanged. It is just that we will no longer pursue our conventional goals of “carrying every type of stationery” and offering an “abundant array of new products,” but provide the products that “Itoya can suggest with confidence”. Now that stationery can be purchased everywhere, I hope to seek a way to differentiate our business from others.

Takashima

We live in a time when anything can be bought on the Internet. Nevertheless, I like the idea that I can be sure to find the best products if I shop at Itoya