Founded in 1961 by Tom Takumi Fujimoto (1905-1993) and Mary Nobori Fujimoto (1909-1987), Monterey Market began life at 1452 Hopkins Street in Berkeley. Taking over the site of the former Porter's Market, located at the intersection of Hopkins and Monterey, the Fujimotos named their neighborhood grocery store Monterey Foods. The store had a butcher who sold fresh meat and, in addition to canned and packaged foods, dairy, wine, and sundries, the store featured fresh produce. By the time he opened Monterey Foods, Tom Fujimoto possessed a lifetime of produce knowledge to bring to this business.

Born in Hiroshima-ken, Japan, young Tom followed his father to the United States when he was 15 years old, settling first in the Pacific Northwest. By the 1930s, he and a partner founded and ran F & F Produce, a wholesale produce business at the Los Angeles produce market. After Tom married the former Mary Nobori of Oakland in 1936 and started a family, he became a celery farmer in the Dominguez Hills area. With World War II, Tom and Mary lost their farm and home as they and their three children - Kenneth, Robert and Gloria - were first interned at Gila, Arizona, and then transferred to the camp at Topaz, utah.

After the war, Tom first sought work as a tenant farmer in Homedale, Idaho, where his fourth child, Bill, was born. Then in 1948, the Fujimoto family resettled in the Bay Area, where Tom worked in stores owned by Mary's brothers. In 1954, Tom & Mary opened their own Acme Market, located at Ninth and Washington Streets in Oakland, where Tom developed a reputation for supplying the desired produce for the multi-cultural clientele of this neighborhood. Those who shopped at the original Monterey Foods remember navigating the singular circuit through the small store in order to fill their shopping carts.

and pay for their purchases at one of three cash registers. In 1968, when the last of their children had graduated from college and were secured in a profession, Tom & Mary decided to change Monterey Market (the name used by most customers) to an all produce store. Customers had always come to Tom's stores for his produce, and he continued to enjoy introducing to the public "new" and "exotic" fruits and vegetables in season. With the success of their retail vision and after the return of two of their sons, Bill and Ken, to the family business, Tom & Mary decided to expand Monterey Market.