Shirokiya will temporarily disappear from Ala Moana Center as the retailer of Japanese merchandise and food prepares to open a bigger store at Hawaii’s largest shopping center.

The locally owned company announced Friday that it will close Thursday and reopen sometime in June with its previously announced Japan Village Walk concept, which includes a more expansive food court, beer garden and cultural decor.

The two-month-or-so hiatus is needed for employees to close the current store and get the new store ready.

“As you can imagine, after decades of being in business, and also with such a huge move, we need the time to make the transition,” the company said in a statement.

To help lighten the load of moving, Shirokiya said it will put some retail items on sale next week.

Shirokiya’s new $35 million store will feature an 800-seat food court with 50 vendors and five beer stations; six Japanese traditional product shops, or “nippon komachi”; regional crafts and artisans in a shopping alley reminiscent of Kyoto when it was Japan’s imperial capital; an area called the guardian spirit sanctuary containing the 12 animal signs of the Japanese zodiac; and an event and performance area.

Japan Village Walk is going to take up 44,680 square feet on the ground floor of Ala Moana’s new Ewa wing that was created by the departure of Sears and construction of 650,000 square feet of new retail space, now filled largely by Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom department stores and many smaller retailers.

Shirokiya’s existing store covers less than 40,000 square feet on two levels adjacent to Macy’s at the end of the mall’s Diamond Head wing and has 25 food vendors, 25 retail vendors and 250 seats.

About 60 employees were working at the current store in August when Shirokiya announced plans for the new store. More employees will be needed for Japan Village Walk, though Shirokiya has not specified how many.

Daisuke Mori, coordinator of the Japan Village Walk project, said in August that he expected the new store would roughly triple Shirokiya’s annual sales to more than $100 million.

“The new location is very good,” he said at the time. “Our mission is to introduce various Japanese food selections, Japanese traditional culture and the spirit of Japanese hospitality (omotenashi) from Hawaii to the world.”

The relocation and expansion represents the latest in a series of moves by Shirokiya at Ala Moana where the retailer that was originally part of the Japanese-based Tokyu Department Store chain opened a 23,000-square-foot store near Sears in 1959 as part of the first phase of the then-new shopping center.

As the mall expanded, Shirokiya moved to a roughly 40,000-square-foot store more or less where it is today. Then in 2001 Tokyu sold the Ala Moana Shirokiya store to a group of store managers, and the store downsized a bit in 2004 as part of a lease renewal agreement.