Endōji Arcade

photo by 円周率３パーセント · CC BY-SA 4.0

photo by 円周率３パーセント · CC BY-SA 4.0

A covered arcade with about thirty small shops; in July it fills with papier-mâché.

Under the arcade roof, a confectioner's that opened in the Meiji period, that is, at the end of the nineteenth century, stands next to a shop that opened last year, and neither looks out of place. At weekends the stalls of a small market take over the passage. At the end of July the shopkeepers hang up the papier-mâché figures they have made themselves, and the public votes for the finest.

Endōji is a covered shopping street halfway between Nagoya Station and the castle. It began in the early seventeenth century, when the city of Kiyosu was moved wholesale to the foot of the new Nagoya Castle and the merchants followed: the street found itself in the right place, on the Horikawa canal, on the Minoji road and in front of the temples that give it its name. It became a merchants’ association in 1938 and a cooperative in its current form in 1962. Today its website states that there are about thirty shops, some founded in the Meiji period and others new. Since 1956 the street has held its own star festival, tanabata: people hang up strips of paper with a wish written on them, and in 2026 it is the sixty-ninth edition.

ℹ️ Five minutes’ walk from exit 2 of Kokusai Center Station, Sakura-dōri Line, or ten from exit 8 of Marunouchi; the Shikemichi district is on the other side of the bridge and you can visit it straight after. The arcade is covered, so it works in the rain too. Opening hours are those of the individual shops, and many close early: in the evening you will find little open. The tanabata festival falls between the end of July and the beginning of August (in 2026 from 29 July to 2 August) and starts at around four in the afternoon on weekdays, at around eleven in the morning at weekends. In autumn the street holds its festival together with Shikemichi.

🚉 Marunouchi · 6 min walk

Sources: endojishotengai.com · endojishotengai.com · nagoya-info.jp

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