The owners of a restaurant on Japan’s Noto Peninsula are hoping to reopen next spring. The eatery in the city of Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, has been affected by mudslides caused by recent record rainfall in the middle of efforts to recover from the New Year’s Day earthquake.
A married couple, Okuno Masaru and Okuno Tsuruko, runs the restaurant Imashin on the roadside along the Japan Sea coast. Near the restaurant was a coastal rock formation in the shape of a window that attracted many tourists.
The opening in the rock was about two-meters across and visitors enjoyed watching the sun set through it, but the earthquake caused the formation to collapse.
The couple shut their doors in January due to the lack of a water supply and other obstacles. They had been planning to reopen in October, but torrential downpours earlier this month brought mud down from a nearby mountain that buried the road.
Okuno Tsuruko said people in the region were deeply shocked by damage from the rain on top of the loss of the famed rock formation.
But her husband Masaru said the restaurant can reopen after road repairs make progress.
He said he wants to do his best to see customers smiling again as early as next spring.