Sawtelle’s Yamaguchi closes after 60 years in business.

It’s a simple memory shared by thousands who grew up in the neighborhood over the past 60 years. So when rumor spread months ago of Yamaguchi’s closing, my childhood friends and I couldn’t help but to think back and sigh.

“Yeah, it’s definitely mixed emotions,” co-owner Jack Yamaguchi said wistfully on Tuesday, the day after the store’s closing. Though he and his brother were still inside cleaning up, the front doors remained locked even as passersby continued to peer in.

Once a post-war dime store, Yamaguchi quickly became a favorite among local children for their candy section.

Jack and Henry were teenagers when their parents, “Tom” Toshikazu and Midori, opened the store in 1946 on the corner of Sawtelle Boulevard and Mississippi Avenue in West Los Angeles. The Sawtelle district was one of the few areas Japanese Americans were allowed to return to at the end of World War II. Up the street, a boarding house was set up for displaced camp internees. Measuring a mere 15 by 20 feet, Yamaguchi served as their local dime store. Its doors stayed open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week, giving a chance for gardeners to pick up an extra pair of work pants. And on Christmas Eve they served patrons through midnight, setting last-minute shoppers at ease. The family also offered a packaging service in which Jack and Henry bundled clothing, canned goods, cigarettes and other items for customers to ship to less-fortunate relatives in Japan. By the early ‘50s, Yamaguchi expanded to include groceries and an assortment of cheap Japanese imports. Yamaguchi’s expansive stock of origami was a later addition.

Items were reduced in price two weeks before Yamaguchi’s closing.

“We had the biggest collection of origami around,” Henry said, pointing at a now-empty shelf.

Even as students at UCLA, the young men rushed home after class to help their parents run the shop and remained by their side until they were drafted into the Army. Henry served in Korea. Jack served in Germany.

“Aside from that, all our time was spent at the store,” Jack said.

The two brothers continued the family business after their father passed away in 1971.

The late-’80s brought in drastic redevelopment to the area. The neighborhood once dominated by mom-and-pop shops and bonsai nurseries was now overrun by strip malls and towering office buildings.

By the mid-’90s a handful of new storefronts emerged, making way for a multi-cultural mix of patrons. Though Yamaguchi was already on the ball, shifting its sales to traditional Japanese items such as Noguchi-esque paper lanterns, ornate iron teapots and ceramic bowls.

Henry doesn’t know what to make of the most recent Sawtelle boom. Just the other day, he was surprised to find dozens of “young kids” hanging out across the street. “...and then I look at the Starbucks (just south of the proclaimed ‘Little Osaka’ district) and there’s nobody there!” he said, scratching his head.

Needless to say, the two-block stretch along Sawtelle Boulevard has become hot property with buyers ready to swoop in at a moment’s notice.

Two months ago, the Yamaguchi brothers sold the bleach-white building at an undisclosed sum to an undisclosed company. Escrow is expected to close in September.

Looking around the shop on Tuesday I realized very little about it had changed from childhood. Most of the shelves were empty, and the glass case holding the scented erasers was gone, but the old-school fixtures and furniture were still the same.

“We were always retro,” Henry laughed.

Two weeks ago, Henry and Jack were prepared for a quiet closure, but that was before their sister-in-law surprised them with a banner commemorating their 60-year anniversary. “It has been our pleasure to serve four generations of loyal customers and friends ...,” it read. The banner was placed across the storefront window, acknowledging to longtime neighbors that the rumor was indeed true.

The response was overwhelming.

“People came in crying,” Henry said. “People came in telling their stories about this place. They’d walk in and look around just like you’re doing. They thought we were going to go on forever.”

But at 75 years old, Henry felt it was time to retire. Jack agreed. In his long-awaited free time, Henry hopes to travel more. Jack would like to fulfill more of his grandfatherly duties.

“When I get up my job will be to take my granddaughter and grandson to school,” he said. “Then I’ll be repairing and painting.”

In the past two weeks, prices were marked down between 50 to 70 percent, but by the first three days the store was nearly cleaned out. Though some saw it simply as a bargain, loyal customers saw it as their last chance to look for a keepsake, something that would always remind them of Yamaguchi’s.

For me, my eyes wandered to the candy corner in the back. Less than half of its original stock was left, but it was exactly as I remembered it nearly 20 years ago.

Jack and Henry smiled, urging me to grab whatever I wanted. They even offered a brown paper bag to hold my stash. Back when I was 9, I held my mound of candy in the palm of my hand. As Jack counted my change, Henry would be reading the newspaper beside him with his glasses dropping to the tip of his nose. I feared talking to adults and never so much as made a sound when I approached the counter. Realizing now what good people they are, I really wish I had.