The claim
An izakaya in Sakae, opened by Yamada Tokugorō in about 1907 and run by four generations of his family since. The Nagoya air raids burned the premises in 1945 and the present two-storey building went up in 1954, its walls, floor and long shared tables unchanged since. Drinkers take bowls of simmered and vinegared dishes from a serving stand, order sake from their seats, and are added up on an abacus.
What the records show
The 1907 is the house's own. Its chronology dates the founder Yamada Tokugorō's move from Ōharu to Nagoya, and the opening of the izakaya, to about Meiji 40, and the year is in its web address. Japanese Wikipedia gives 1907 in its infobox and in its history section, citing Nagoya guidebooks and the Chūnichi Shimbun, although its opening sentence prints 1909 beside Meiji 40, which is a year out and is the error to watch for in anything that copies it. No licence, directory or newspaper of the period has been traced, so the date rests on the family's account: grade C. The trade was interrupted rather than ended by the war — the premises burned in the Nagoya air raids of 1945, sake was a controlled commodity until 1948 and the shop sold shaved ice and seaweed noodles meanwhile — and the present building dates from 1954. Nothing traced says in words that a drink is served without food, which is why q1-drink-without-a-meal is in needs; what is published is that the house opens at a quarter to four in the afternoon, stocks only Kamotsuru, Kikumasamune, beer and, since 2018, shōchū and highballs, and describes itself as a long-established izakaya where sake is drunk with good food. A first-hand record has now been traced, and it is in print rather than in a licence. The National Diet Library's digitised collections hold Nagoya's classified telephone directories, and three of them name the house. The volume for 1922, edited by Moriya Hidekichi for the Jitsugyō Kōshinjo, lists Daijin Honten under the heading for Nagoya sake dealers, with Yamada Tokugorō as proprietor, an address at Shinyanagi-chō 4-11 in Naka ward and the telephone number Hon 1404. The 1923 volume from the same publisher repeats the entry, and the directory published by the Teiyū Kyōkai in 1935 carries Daijin Honten under food and drink provisions with the same proprietor's name and the same number, by then on the Hon 2 exchange. That is the family's own name in print fifteen years after the year the house claims, and thirteen years of it at one telephone number. Two things it does not settle. The trade it is filed under is the selling of drink rather than an eating house, and nothing in the entries says that anybody drank on the premises, so the earliest record of drinking here is still not fixed and that field stays empty. And the address is a pre-war one: the house is at 1-5-6 Sakae today, and beyond the ward and the proprietor's name nothing traced here ties Shinyanagi-chō 4-11 to the present site, although a printed guide to Nagoya's drinking houses, cited by the Japanese Wikipedia article, says the pre-war shop reached as far as the Misonoza theatre, which is a thread to follow rather than a link this page can yet make.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1907 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1954 | Present building | The house's own chronology, which dates the present building to Shōwa 29 |
What to look for inside
- Opened by Yamada Tokugorō in about 1907; four generations of the family since
- Present building of 1954, its walls, floor and tables unaltered
- Self-service small dishes, and the bill added up on an abacus
Visiting
Daijin Honten is in Nagoya, Japan, at 1-5-6 Sakae, Naka-ku, Nagoya, Aichi 460-0008. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E7%94%9A%E6%9C%AC%E5%BA%97
- www.daijin1907.com/overview
- dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970716/1/107
- dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/924501/1/132
- dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1027065/1/238
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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