The shop is located in a hexagonal building adjacent to Kyotango-Omiya Station (Omiya-cho, Kyotango City) on the Kyoto Tango Railway. Entering the shop is like stepping into an overturned toy box. The ceiling and walls are densely decorated with Elvis Presley memorabilia, goods from the movies “American Graffiti” and “Grease”, portable radios, large boomboxes, miniature cars, and 1950s American memorabilia.

“I wanted to create a shop where bikers could gather,” says owner Tokuhiko Komaki, 69. He quit his office job at age 38 and opened the first vintage clothing store in northern Kyoto Prefecture at the time, in front of Mineyama High School. Two years later, he started a coffee shop in an adjacent vacant storefront. He moved to a location near Kyotango-Omiya Station seven years ago. He recreated the atmosphere of the Mineyama store himself.

The lunch menu features only one item: the “Special Omelet Rice” (includes soup, ¥1,100). Basil rice is wrapped in fluffy, runny eggs, served with a choice of two sauces: the ‘red’ demi-glace or the “white” carbonara-style. Both are exquisite and likely to become addictive.

It all started when he made it as staff meals for young part-timers during his vintage clothing shop days. His family once ran the cooking inn “Yoshino-ya” near Omiya Station, and Komaki says, “I learned cooking by watching and imitating.”

On holidays, the shop fills with touring bikers. Graduates of Mineyama High School also visit when they return home. Thirty-one years since the vintage clothing shop, the rice omelet has become a taste enjoyed while riding through Tango, a taste that evokes nostalgia for home.

Komaki smiled, saying, “The high school students from back then are now parents themselves, and they call it ‘nostalgic food.’ It makes me happy when their children and grandchildren come to the shop to eat too.”

Copyright © The Kyoto Shimbun

Translated by Kyotango City Tourism Association