Here’s Decoboco in skeleton condition♪ We closed down and fled today (just kidding)
Ten years since the earthquake… time really flies, doesn’t it?
It’s been nearly twenty years since we opened the shop… I find myself thinking, wow, we’ve really kept going all this time.
I sometimes tell the funny story of how we moved back then.
Why did we move so suddenly?
That year was 2011, when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck. Convenience stores had nearly emptied of preserved foods, and gas stations had long lines of people waiting day after day for fuel that might or might not arrive.
The TV showed shocking footage of flooding. Abnormal aftershocks continued relentlessly day after day.
I think almost everyone felt like things might just fall apart completely.
2011 was the year our shop lease was up for renewal, and on a whim…
I thought, “Hey, let’s just cancel it”
and recklessly submitted a cancellation notice without telling anyone.
Don’t you think?
In times like these, surely there would be tons of vacant storefronts?—I was overconfident, but…
it was the complete opposite.
They just didn’t move…
The market was sluggish! I thought, and spent days searching for vacant storefronts with real estate agents and online.
I really couldn’t find anything at all… it was genuinely nerve-wracking.
Ideas like “worst case, I’ll just dump everything in a warehouse…” started spinning around in my head, and I began to feel a strong sense that I might really not find anything.
I figured I’d have to make the rounds of local real estate offices, so I visited a few places. I went to see the vacant lot where an Auto Jacker nearby had closed down.
The structure was poor for the size of the space, and the price per tsubo didn’t work out, so we passed.
I had some minimum requirements for the property I was looking for
・The space should be rectangular (no pillars), with no level changes
・An entrance, preferably with parking available for a vehicle
・30 tsubo or larger
When I told the real estate agent this, he hand-drew a map and said
“I haven’t listed this property yet, so why don’t you go check it out?”—and that’s how we found our current shop.
When we arrived, I almost drove past it—I was a bit surprised by how set back it was, but when I nervously peeked through the glass, I remember being amazed: “Wow, it’s huge!”
Since this story is getting long…
what I realized after moving was
the importance of “organization and tidiness” and “storage in boxes is essential”—two key points.
You really notice it when you move—just how much stuff you have. The quantity was genuinely scary (；∀；) Anyway!
