Droves of customers lined the aisles of the new Ebisu Life Store all week, following its opening on Dec. 8. The Japanese lifestyle chain sells an array of international goods including snacks, stationery, skincare and popular collectible toys.

The new location is the second in Illinois, after Chicago, and sits on Green Street next to Caffé Bene. Ebisu has stores across the country, mainly in New York and along the West Coast.

A manager told The Daily Illini that many of their items had sold out completely in the first few days. The most popular was the Smiski – a tiny, glow-in-the-dark figurine that has been gaining popularity on social media.

Savannah Knox, freshman in LAS, and Teagan Reynolds, freshman in the Division of Exploratory Studies, visited the store on Dec. 10 after seeing it on TikTok. The pair said they had been waiting for Kukuri – another Japanese lifestyle store – to open up on Wright Street, and were happy to see Ebisu appear.

“I got gifts for some people,” Reynolds said. “I got a little keychain, and they have snacks and face care there, which I’ve heard is really good from other countries.”

Knox said she bought a face mask and matching pins for her and her roommate. 

The small storefront proved difficult to maneuver with the number of customers present, but the shelves were still brimming with interesting items. Characters like Hello Kitty and My Melody adorned pencils, notepads and hair clips, and a variety of instant ramen, chips and candies colored the food aisle. 

Sophie Chan, sophomore in Business, went to the store on its opening day. She wasn’t planning on going, but passed by the packed storefront and decided to stop in. 

Chan said she was surprised to find items from her childhood on the shelves, like hair products she had in her bathroom and nostalgic fruit drinks. 

“These kinds of things in middle-of-nowhere Champaign was very exciting to see,” Chan said.

Since coming to Champaign, she had found that the availability of Asian products in the area hadn’t matched up to that of her hometown in the Chicago suburbs. Now, she said, Ebisu offers the selection she was looking for.

“I think it’ll create some excitement and bring something new for people to be interested in exploring,” Chan said. “I know even leading up to the opening, a lot of my Asian friends were very excited about it.”

The manager said the owner had started thinking about opening a location in Champaign two years ago, after noticing the student population’s interest in Asian lifestyle products. 

The campus boasts an international student population of 13,268 students, with many among them hailing from countries like China and South Korea. The large international presence has been known to influence C-U’s restaurants and stores. 

“(The store is) bringing something different to, not only the Asian population, but everybody else getting to experience those kinds of things as well,” Chan said. 

Ebisu Life Store is located at 524 E. Green St., Suite 101, in Champaign.

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