If there were a Super Bowl for grocery-store events, Emeryville had its this weekend with the grand opening of Tokyo Central.
The long-awaited Asian supermarket celebrated its debut on Saturday, Jan. 31, and Sunday, Feb. 1, with lines snaking up and down the block, a store worker at the door letting people in one or two at a time.
A security guard monitoring the crowd estimated the wait to get in on Sunday afternoon at two hours. “Good thing I didn’t work yesterday,” he said. “Yesterday was worse. It was looped around down to the parking lot.”
Tokyo Central is the first supermarket to land in Emeryville in more than 30 years. The ground-level store is located at 5603 Bay St. in a new 40,000-square-foot-plus building, with a rooftop given over to roughly 110 parking spots.