History Corner
The Hong Kong Department Store Chronicles

The Story of Little Ginza β€” Matsuzakaya, Mitsukoshi & Sogo

Three Japanese department stores followed Daimaru into Causeway Bay β€” and each one left the neighbourhood in a completely different way.

πŸ”Š Tap an amber chip to hear the Cantonese pronunciation (Jyutping romanisation included).

1. Matsuzakaya Arrives β€” But Not for the First Time (1975)

Fifteen years after Daimaru's opening night, Matsuzakaya (松坂屋) opened its own flagship at the Hang Lung Centre on Paterson Street in April 1975, introducing a new generation of Hongkongers to Japanese records, homeware, stationery, snacks, and dining under one roof.

It wasn't Matsuzakaya's first appearance in the city, though. During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong (1941–45), the military administration seized Lane Crawford's Central store and handed it to Matsuzakaya to operate β€” making its 1975 opening less a debut than a return, three decades and a very different Hong Kong later.

The Hong Kong Matsuzakaya storefront, decorated with red banners reading 松坂屋, with crowds gathered outside
Hong Kong Matsuzakaya: The storefront dressed in its signature red banners β€” crowds gathering outside on Paterson Street, much as they once did outside Daimaru's own opening a decade and a half earlier.

2. Mitsukoshi Joins the Neighbourhood (1981)

Six years later, Mitsukoshi (δΈ‰θΆŠ) opened inside the Hennessy Centre, becoming synonymous with affordable luxury and trendy global brands. Business was strong: at its peak, Hong Kong alone generated roughly 40% of Mitsukoshi's entire overseas earnings β€” a scale most department stores in this series never came close to.

By the early 1980s, Causeway Bay was home to two Japanese department stores within easy walking distance of each other, and a third was already on its way.

Aerial view of the Mitsukoshi department store sign on a curved building above a busy Causeway Bay street with trams and buses
Mitsukoshi, Hennessy Centre: Mitsukoshi's colourful signage curved along the building's facade above one of Causeway Bay's busiest tram and bus routes β€” a fitting image for a store generating roughly 40% of its parent company's overseas earnings from this one location alone.

3. Sogo Completes the Quartet (1985)

The site at 555 Hennessy Road had an unusual history even before Sogo (崇光) arrived: it was originally the construction site for Causeway Bay MTR station, sold by the railway corporation to a Japanese construction firm for HK$380 million in 1984. On top of it, Sogo opened its Hong Kong flagship on 31 May 1985 β€” the last of the four Japanese department stores to arrive, and, as it would turn out, the only one that would still be trading decades later.

The Sogo department store building on Hennessy Road, Causeway Bay, with a large colourful mural on its lower facade
Sogo, Hennessy Road: Sogo's building today β€” still standing on the same Hennessy Road site sold off decades ago, and still the only survivor of the four department stores that once made this stretch of Causeway Bay Hong Kong's "Little Ginza."

4. Three Different Endings

Little Ginza's four department stores didn't leave Causeway Bay for the same reason. Matsuzakaya closed in 1998, the same year as Daimaru, undone by the same combination of rising rents and the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Mitsukoshi lasted until 2006 β€” not because it was struggling, but because its host building, the Hennessy Centre, was demolished to make way for the much taller Hysan Place. Mitsukoshi didn't fail; it simply ran out of building.

Sogo alone survives in Hong Kong today, and the reason is almost accidental: rather than renting its premises like its three neighbours, Sogo had bought the land-use rights to its own building outright. When rents in Causeway Bay soared and the other three stores were forced out one by one, Sogo simply wasn't exposed to the same risk β€” a small structural decision, made decades earlier, that turned out to decide which department store would still be standing when the rest of Little Ginza had gone quiet.