When you enter Maido in Ardmore, you are instantly enveloped in a full sensory experience of Japanese cuisine and culture, writes Gina E. Kim for WHYY.
The sounds and smells of delicious foods cooking like okonomiyaki and fried croquettes have been drawing in customers for years.
Maido is a grocery store, restaurant, and community hub.
Seiko Dailey, the head chef and co-owner of Maido, said that she decided to open her own store when she saw the need for a Japanese market in the community.
She and her husband Pat first opened a small store in Narberth in 2003, and then relocated to Ardmore in 2015 which allowed them to expand into a restaurant as well.
“We did not have any Japanese-owned Japanese restaurant or a Japanese market within the area, and my husband and I were thinking about starting something to bring Japanese people and also non-Japanese people together,” she said.
Rob Buscher, board president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League, said that having a store like Maido in the community is very important.
“Having a place like Maido is a resource that I’ve never experienced in my life up until moving to Philadelphia. To be able to go to a Japanese grocery store outside of the time that I spent living in Japan and have access to specialty ingredients and dishes that I wouldn’t be able to cook otherwise…It sort of feels to me like there’s a centering of the cultural community identity that takes place when you have food culture available and these kinds of very specific foodways.”
Read more about how Maido brings the community together at WHYY.
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Mochitsuki Festival at Maido.
