Cupertino Crossroads Got Both of Its Empty Anchors Back This Fall: Inside Hashi Market and the New Barnes & Noble

The line started at 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 9, two and a half hours before Hashi Market unlocked its doors on Stevens Creek Boulevard. By mid-morning it filled the whole parking lot, and the Yosakoi dance troupe Uzumaru was performing out front. Cashiers rang up about 300 transactions an hour for most of the morning, and roughly 1,700 people had come through by closing, according to SFGATE's opening-day report.

Twenty-six days later, at the other end of the same shopping center, author Parini Shroff cut the ribbon on a new Barnes & Noble at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 4.

So in less than a month, Cupertino Crossroads went from two dark anchor boxes to none. One is a Japanese specialty grocer that picked Cupertino as its first stop outside New York. The other is the city's first general bookstore since its last ones closed. Both picked this site because of what Cupertino is, and what it was missing.

Two boxes, two vacancies, 26 days apart

Here is how the two spaces line up.

The Sprouts space stood empty longer. The City of Cupertino said in its Hashi Market announcement that it had been vacant since Sprouts Farmers Market closed in 2023. The Registry described the Barnes & Noble opening as the end of a nearly two-year vacancy in the old Party City box. Anyone who drove past on the way to TJ Maxx, which sits right next to the bookstore, saw papered windows at one end of the center or the other for most of three years.

Why a New York grocer opened its first West Coast store here

Hashi Market opened in New York in 2024 and now runs six stores in New York City, with two more planned for Chelsea and the Upper East Side. Its own store list places the open locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The company could have opened its first California store almost anywhere. Head of operations Ava Liu gave SFGATE a short explanation for choosing Cupertino:

"It's a central place for California. Apple is here. Everyone knows it."

Liu told SFGATE the Stevens Creek store is the company's California flagship, and that "we really put a lot of passion and energy and effort into this location."

The rest of the plan shows how much weight this one store carries. In the same report, SFGATE said Hashi has bought Marina Grocery stores in Milpitas, San Mateo and Union City. It is adding Japanese products to those stores to test demand before deciding whether they become Hashi Markets or another brand in its parent company, Toyo Group. Operations director Justin Li said the company plans 15 more stores by the end of 2027, including in Massachusetts and Colorado. Of all that, Cupertino is the one store that opened as a full Hashi from day one, so the rest of the Bay Area rollout will be measured against it.

Hashi also arrived during a busy year for Asian supermarkets in the region. SFGATE listed T&T Supermarket's San Jose opening in June, Tokyo Central in Emeryville in February, and H Mart in Dublin in March. Hashi's angle is narrower than any of those. It is built around imported Japanese goods, with a deep shelf of products from Hokkaido.

What to pick up at Hashi on a weeknight

The 20,000-square-foot store carries imported Japanese snacks, produce, seafood, meat and sake. Here is what SFGATE found inside:

• Three large grab-and-go kiosks with chicken katsu bentos, curry bowls, salmon teriyaki and A5 wagyu rice bowls, which were $26 at opening
• A full wall of sushi rolls and nigiri boxes on the far right of the store
• An in-house bakery with breads and sweets baked daily
• Hokkaido goods, including beef, rice, cheesecake, premium chocolate and melons priced at $59 at opening
• Two big aisles of beauty and lifestyle products from brands including Senka, Canmake and Bonbory

The kiosks are the section SFGATE singled out as "a boon for nearby tech workers" and for students at De Anza College down the road. Liu also told SFGATE the store planned to mark all sushi down 30% after 8 p.m. Hashi already does this at its New York stores. With SFGATE reporting daily hours until 11 p.m., Hashi stays open later than most of the center, so a late dinner run is a realistic use for it.

The bookstore Cupertino had been missing

The bookstore draws on a different kind of history. The Barnes & Noble announcement says the store "marks the return of a general bookstore to Cupertino." It lists the shops the city lost over the years: Crown Books, B. Dalton Bookseller, Waldenbooks, and the independents A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books and Stacey's. At 18,000 square feet, the company says the new store is bigger than any of them.

When San José Spotlight first reported the plan in April, the store was still under city review. Seven months later it is open, with a Barnes & Noble Café, a newsstand, vinyl, stationery, toys and games. Mayor Kitty Moore pointed to the interactive toys and the large children's reading section. "As we head into the rainy season, there's nothing quite like finding a new favorite read or discovering something unexpected," she said in the City's press release.

Store manager Jashee Yang has said in so many words that the shelves will be shaped around the neighborhood. In the company's announcement, Yang described the location as being in "this central location of Silicon Valley and tech offices." She said the team is "cultivating shelves catered to" the businesses around the store, while hoping it will be "a welcome place for new and seasoned readers alike." In the City's release, Yang added that the team wants to learn "what they enjoy reading and what they'd like to see in our store." The store posts events and news under @bncupertinoca on social media.

Cupertino isn't a one-off for the chain. It was one of five Barnes & Noble stores that opened on Nov. 4. The company says it is on track for 60 openings by the end of 2026 and now runs more than 735 stores, up from fewer than 600 in 2023. A chain growing that fast gets to choose its sites, and it chose a prominent spot at Crossroads.

Who's lined up nearby

The two anchors are the biggest names in a longer list of openings. In its October release, the City listed businesses that had already opened in 2026: Safar by Karim, Jin Gege & YaoYao, NaiSnow, Miniso, Masakali Indian Cuisine, Charlie's Tea, BonBon Matcha, Preferred Bank and HSBC Bank. Here is where some of those businesses, and a few still in permitting, are located:

1. Jin Gege & YaoYao, a Chinese restaurant at Marketplace, 19628 Stevens Creek Blvd., which opened in late August and keeps daily hours of 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
2. Preferred Bank, whose Silicon Valley regional office is at 20803 Stevens Creek Blvd. in the old Vitamin Shoppe space, open weekdays from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
3. Specialty's Café & Bakery, which filed tenant-improvement plans for 20488 Stevens Creek Blvd., the former Le Boulanger space, according to the City Manager's Sept. 30 newsletter.
4. Four tenants at Nineteen800 that were in permitting as of the City Manager's Oct. 14 newsletter: CoCo Ichibanya Curry House at 19900 Vallco Parkway, Suite 100; LX Fitness in Suite 150; More Yogurt in Suite 160; and Baby Café at 10088 N. Wolfe Road, Suite 100.

The October release also named Taste Buds Kitchen, Kunjip Express, Hokkaido Bakery, EE Sushi and DuoDuo Snacks as working through permits. Most of the businesses on that list are food. City Manager Tina Kapoor summed up what the city wants in the Nov. 4 release: "Filling vacant retail spaces brings renewed energy to our commercial shopping centers and creates more opportunities for local shopping."

If you want to pair the bookstore with something else on the city calendar, the free Community Tree Lighting is Friday, Dec. 4, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Quinlan Community Center, 10185 N. Stelling Road. It includes live music from a local choir, and families can visit Santa for photos once the tree is lit. Barnes & Noble is open until 9 p.m. on weekdays, so there is time to stop in after the lights go on.

At Georgia Phillips, we keep track of which Cupertino storefronts are filling and with whom, because new anchors like these change what living near Stevens Creek is like day to day. If you'd like to talk through how nearby retail is factoring into your plans around Cupertino Crossroads, schedule a personalized consultation and we'll go over it together.