Field Notes: Guide to Japantown, San Francisco The oldest Japantown in the country, still very much alive Japantown—Nihonmachi—sits just west of Fillmore, centered on Post Street and the Peace Plaza. It's one of only three Japantowns left in the entire United States, and San Francisco's is the oldest of them. The neighborhood's roots go back to the 1906 earthquake and fire, when Japanese residents displaced from Chinatown and South of Market resettled in the Western Addition. By 1940, Japantown covered more than a dozen blocks and was home to over 200 Japanese American-owned businesses. Then came World War II: every resident of Japanese ancestry was forcibly removed and sent to incarceration camps, and the neighborhood emptied out overnight. Many families returned after the war and rebuilt, only to be displaced a second time in the 1960s, when a major redevelopment project razed much of the historic core to build the Japan Center. The Peace Pagoda that anchors the plaza today was completed in 1968—a gift from San Francisco's sister city, Osaka—standing, a little ironically, on the site of one of the more contentious land battles in the city's history. Explore along Geary Boulevard near the plaza and you'll find a quieter memorial to that history: a stone landmark inscribed with a poem by Janice Mirikitani and a list of every internment camp, plus an unfolding new project—the Japantown History Mural, led by the local Japanese American Citizens League—that will eventually depict a dozen figures from the neighborhood's 115-plus years. Kinokuniya Bookstore Opened in 1969, this was the very first Kinokuniya bookstore in the United States—and it's still one of the best browses in the city. The first floor is a manga and anime wonderland (look for the mural-sized illustration by artist Katsuya Terada, painted live in the store back in 2013), while the second floor holds a genuinely deep collection of Japanese and English titles, art books, and gifts. It's the kind of store where you go in for one manga volume and leave forty minutes later with an armful. Yasukochi's Sweet Stop Here's the weird part: San Francisco's most beloved cake is sold out of the back of a grocery store. Yasukochi's Sweet Stop has been baking its famous coffee crunch cake—layered sponge cake, whipped cream, a shattering honeycomb candy shell—inside Super Mira Market since 1974. It's cash-friendly, sells out most afternoons, and is exactly the kind of hidden-in-plain-sight spot that makes a neighborhood feel like a secret you're in on. 🌸 A Note From ACME Floral Co. Japantown is one of our favorite corners to deliver to—Cherry Blossom Festival gifts, celebration mochi runs, thank-yous for a favorite shopkeeper. If you're local (or sending something to someone who is), fresh flowers fit right in here. [Order for Japantown delivery →] On the Bridge For the neighborhood's most delightfully odd bar-and-restaurant, head to On the Bridge—literally located on the enclosed walkway connecting the Japan Center's two malls. It's been family-run for decades, serving yoshoku (Japanese takes on Western comfort food, like curry rice and shrimp-roe spaghetti) alongside a genuinely enormous sake and Japanese beer list, all while you sit at a long wooden bar surrounded by plushies and shelves of manga. It's part restaurant, part dive bar, part fever dream, and completely worth it. Architecture, a Park, and a View Worth the Selfie For architecture, duck into Cottage Row, a hidden "English mews"-style walkway lined with six original Victorian cottages—a quiet survivor from before redevelopment reshaped the rest of the neighborhood. The Peace Pagoda itself, a five-tiered concrete stupa designed by Tokyo architect Yoshiro Taniguchi, is the neighborhood's centerpiece and its best photo op—especially from the plaza looking straight up through the tiers. Peace Plaza around it doubles as the neighborhood's park: benches, open pavement for the Cherry Blossom Festival crowds, and a spot to just sit with a coffee crunch cake and watch the neighborhood go by. A Great Neighborhood to Wander Japantown rewards an unhurried lap—through the malls, into Kinokuniya, out to the plaza, back for ramen. Getting here is easy, too: it's well served by Muni bus lines along Geary and Fillmore, so there's no need to hunt for parking. Local Favorites Coffee & Snacks Yasukochi's Sweet Stop (inside Super Mira Market) Shopping Kinokuniya Bookstore Dining & Drinks On the Bridge Marufuku Ramen Don't Miss The Peace Pagoda and Peace Plaza Cottage Row's hidden Victorian mews The internment memorial landmark on Geary Boulevard Time a visit for the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival in April Japantown has been rebuilt, redeveloped, and reimagined more than once—but it's still the oldest Japantown in the country, and it still feels like exactly that: a neighborhood, not a theme park.