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A narrow stone-paved lane lined with old wooden candy shops in Kashiya Yokocho, Kawagoe
Photo: At by At, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Saitama · old town

Kashiya Yokocho (Penny Candy Alley)

菓子屋横丁

A stone-paved Kawagoe alley packed with old-fashioned sweet, candy and dango shops. Follow the smell of grilling soy sauce and snack your way along.

Visitors walking past small traditional sweet shops in Kashiya Yokocho, Kawagoe
Photo: Aimaimyi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Colorful dagashi candies displayed in trays outside a shop in Kashiya Yokocho
Photo: Aimaimyi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A "sweet alley" dating back to the Meiji era

Kashiya Yokocho (Penny Candy Alley) is a lane lined with sweet shops in Motomachi, Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture. A yokocho is a narrow side street just off a main road. Sweets have been made here since around the early Meiji era, and the number of shops grew through noren-wake, the custom of an apprentice who has finished training opening their own shop under the same trade name.

After Tokyo was badly hit by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the alley took over the role of making sweets and sending them all over the country in Tokyo's place. At its peak, it is said to have had about 70 shops.

Snacking on dagashi, candy and dango

Shops that still make sweets the traditional way line the alley. On sale you will find dagashi (cheap, simple sweets that children can buy with their pocket money), mint candy and nikki candy (flavoured with a tree bark that smells like cinnamon), dango (rice dumplings) and karumeyaki (a treat made by puffing up sugar). Colourful sweets are piled up in front of the shops, and just looking at them is fun.

The lane is filled with the savoury smell of grilling soy sauce and the sweet smell of candy. This "scentscape" was chosen by the Ministry of the Environment in 2001 as one of the 100 Fragrant Landscapes of Japan.

Explore it with the storehouse streets

Kashiya Yokocho is in central Kawagoe, known for its streets of kurazukuri (storehouse-style) buildings. You can walk around it together with the storehouse street of Ichibangai and Toki no Kane, the Bell of Time.

The easiest way to get there is by bus from Kawagoe Station (JR and Tobu Tojo Line) to the Kashiya Yokocho stop. From Hon-Kawagoe Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Line it is about a 15-minute walk.

Tips

  • Most shops are small, so buy a little at several different shops and you get to try lots of different treats.
  • The bus is the handy way from Kawagoe Station. Combine the alley with Ichibangai, Toki no Kane and Kawagoe Hikawa Shrine on a walking route.
  • Opening hours and closing days differ from shop to shop. If there is a particular shop you want to visit, check before you go.

Sources

Updated 28 September 2026. Opening hours and prices change, so check the official site before you go.

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