After 18 years in business at their location at 648 Broadway Street in Downtown Fresno, Yoshi Now will be moving to a new building, with the location being primed for a new use in 2024. Photo by Frank Lopez

A much-loved staple business in Fresno is moving to a new location with a new business.

Yoshi Now, a popular vintage items and clothing store at 648 Broadway Street in Downtown Fresno will be moving after 18 years in business at the location.

Yoshi Now will be moving into the building of Yoshi World, a thrift and antique store at 1410 Kern Street, but will be separate from the thrift store.

Yoshi Now’s last day in business will be this Sunday, and is currently having a 50% off sale for everything in the store.

Rio Toi co-owns the store with her father, original founder of Yoshi Now, Yoshi Toi.

“We had the opportunity to combine and wanted to do a more one-stop-shop,” Rio said. “Instead of having our customers go back and forth between the two stores.”

Yoshi was a real estate agent who discovered he really enjoyed selling used things, starting off with a thrift store called the garage sale, transforming to Yoshi Now in 2005, which focused specifically on vintage items.

At the time of Yoshi Now’s opening, there were a handful of vintage clothing stores including Valentino’s and Retro Rag, both of which have since gone out of business, but it was one of the biggest in the area at the time, Rio said.

The Yoshi Now section of the building will have the clothing and midcentury modern furniture, While Yoshi World will have more upscale thrift and antique items.

 

The location on Kern Street is a former Japanese supermarket chain store in America named Yahohan which opened in 1979.

Rio said she opened the store as Yoshi World this January, and that it was used as a warehouse for some time. After the Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, the store was opened to the public in 2021.

Now that the business has a name and a brand, it was easier to market it and has been leading to greater customer turnouts.

The Toi’s will continue to own the building on Broadway Street, and will be doing something new with it in the Spring of 2024.

Yoshi World accepts sales from the public, and also get inventory from estate sales, liquidations, and buyout.

With the rising popularity of thrifting and reselling, and the rising cost of living, prices have gone up more recently, but there is no trouble in actually finding items, Rio said.

“It’s a phenomenon how popular vintage and thrifting has gotten, but we support it because we are vintage and we are thrift,” Rio said.

Rio said they have customers telling how much Yoshi Now had impacted their lives, telling them how they used to go in when they were young and are coming in 18 years later with children of their own.

She said the hope is to keep growing and expanding, and they are all excited with the future of the Yoshi Now building.