Official
Why do you call a barber shop "tokoya"?
A floor store is a type of stall, and there are two types: a floor store (Tokomise) and a Yoshige (Yoshizu). The floor store is mainly a temporary store with floors, walls, and roofs, and the frontage is about one to one and a half. Because it has a low floor, it was called a "floor shop". The merchant sits on the floor, and the customer selects the goods arranged on the display stand or hanging on the eaves. As an exception, a barber shop may be used for hairdressing business, which is called a hairdressing bed and is the etymology of a barber shop, the common name of a barber shop. It is sometimes called a hair bed.
Yoshijobari is a store with walls and roofs in Yoshijo, which is made by making skeletons from sticks and knitting Yoshi (ashi). A seat and a parlor will be set up and customers will be placed in the store. Yoshi-enri is also used for restaurants such as teahouses, and for performances such as plays and shows.
Number of floor stores
The number of floor stores licensed for business on Asakusa Kuramae Street is unknown, but the length of the business permitted area was 350 and the frontage of one floor store was stipulated in one and a half, so there were around 230 shops. It is presumed that there was. It's spectacular to see the floor shops lined up!
There were many places where floor shops were opened in Edo, but Asakusa Kuramae-dori is a business area where many floor shops are concentrated. It seems that more than 100 floor shops were open in Uenoyamashita and Edo Hirokoji. On the southern shore of the Kanda River, there were more than 300 floor shops on the Yanagihara Dote-dori St., between the bridge and Asakusabashi. Yanagihara Dote-dori St., which extends west from Minamizume in Asakusabashi, and Asakusa Kuramae-dori, located a little north of Asakusabashi, lined up as the largest floor store business area in Edo at that time.
Reference:
① The first book of "Edo Famous Zoukai"
② "Dainippon Early Modern Historical Materials" 4, 234 to 235 pages of various wholesalers
③ Tokyo Metropolitan Archives March 2019, Tokyo Metropolitan Archives