April 9, 2008
What Happened To No Name Sushi?
We were craving some cheap, cheap tuna rolls the other day, and figured we'd head out to our favorite sushi place in the whole wide world, Yokoso Nippon, which is, of course, the beloved No Name Sushi on 15th and Church. This is the first sushi place we ever went to in San Francisco! Sure, it's not the highest-quality fish, but you cannot beat the prices. Like $5 for 16 pieces of hosomaki!
So imagine our horror when we walked up and all the windows were boarded up with white paper, and there was a handwritten sign on the door that said "The restaurant is closed." WHAT??? (There was no name on the restaurant sign either, but, of course, that doesn't mean anything one way or the other.)
What's going on? We checked on Yelp and, while there's a couple theories, no one seemed to be exactly sure on the status. Can someone please let us know?
Please don't say No Name has closed!!! It would truly be the end of an era for us! A single tear rolls down our face, and splashes into our cloudy miso and potato soup.
Picture of No Name, from happier times.
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Damn. Yet another sign of the impending apocalypse.
If Tommy's Joynt stops dishing out the buffalo stew I'm heading into the mountains, far away from humanity.
saw this today... maybe something to do with the fire upstairs a year ago.
what a bummer...been eating there for years & the people were pretty nice.
a little more of frisco passes.
mission
Oh noes!
oh man. sigh. terrible news.
It's closed because the upstairs floor of the building it's in caught on fire last year. For a while there was a big pile of burnt junk on the sidewalk outside. At least I assume that the fire is why it closed...
that sucks, I really liked that place.
if we lose Tommy's, i'll call in the airstrikes to level the city myself.
Dude! I walked by there Saturday, and the sign was there but the windows weren't covered. I thought about taking a picture because all the furniture was gone so the sign seemed rather NO DUH to me. But then I didn't cause I'm lazy, and I didn't have my good camera, just my crappy phone camera.
ewwww. no name was so gross. i can't believe people ate there. it couldn't have closed because of the fire since they were open for 6+ months after. they probably got closed down for serving sushi in a steam room. you guys really shouldn't settle for sushi, of all things, at that level. it's a health hazard.
Aak, just the mere mention (by poster RobinSF) of Tommy's Joynt closing made made me tear up AND throw up a little...and no, that is not because the delicious buffalo stew I just ate there is kicking in.
They're open. You just can't tell 'cause the windows are fogged up.
BAM!!!
I'm going to suggest it's the fire. The building above is completely gutted. The water damage had to be extensive. Whether they return is probably going to depend on what the building owner decides to do with two charred floors.
A friend told me this news over dinner tonight and I slapped him right in the mouth. Now I guess I'll have to apologize. Yck.
Just to be fair, I went to
http://www.dph.sf.ca.us/eh/Violations/Loc_Addresses.asp
just to check and see of there were any violations (hell, my fave Chinese joint Tai Chi always has some dings but that Generals Chix is SO good I would pick dead roaches and elderly, homeless underpants out of it just to eat it) but if a place doesnt have a name, how do you find it?
I mean, it is called no name sushi...
That's terrible to hear that our favorite places to eat are slowly disappearing.
I remember my favorite Japanese restaurant with affordable prices and the largest individual portions of the main dish. It was all freshly prepared and served steaming hot. That place was on Irving, next door to infamous Dr. Jang's dental office.
uh-HUP-uh!
this is the only sushi place that ever made me sick, never ate there again after that.
to be fair, i also got sick after eating at esperpento on 22nd once, too. i blame the aioli.
once a restaurant makes me hurl it's dead to me. both these places could've diapppeared years ago and i'd have been glad.
RobinSF: As mentioned in the orginal post, the "real" name of the place was Yokoso Nippon (or "Welcome to Japan!"). Its rating is here:
http://www.dph.sf.ca.us/eh/Violations/Loc_CurrentViol.asp?LocationID=1286
Score of 90! "Symbol of Excellence," bitches! Eat it, DonkeyKong!!!
A friend of mine got sick there on vegetarian sushi... yes, vegetarian... so I've always gone to the amazing places on the other side of the street. Waiting for this sauna-esque place to close down. I know it's punk rock to go to no name when you first get in the city fresh from your ivy league, but come on, if you're pulling down a real job, go the extra step for quality sushi. Like, across the street. All the locals, when I lived there, went to Warakabune. No Name is like House of Nanking or Tong Kiang. Popular with a certain set, but locals don't go.
i'm still very upset by this. the only two dates i've ever really gone on occurred there.
also, i'm cheap.
Speaking of late lamented Japanese restaurants, does anyone know what happened to Take Sushi? It was at the corner of Noe & Henry for years and they had my favorite mackeral dish ever. And then they were gone.
Brock: I might suggest Kitaro's on Geary and 21st or Kiki's on 9th Avenue.
Grab a 15% off coupon on the back of your receipt at the Safeway next to Ocean Beach.
Sushi is decent and lower in price, but uses the wrong rice. But they give huge portions of their cooked stuff.
They would leave their empty boxes from frozen fish right out front of the restaurant. Why would you eat sushi from fish that had been frozen? I agree with other posters -- if you're going to eat raw fish, it should be good quality. Save it for a splurgey day.
rroseselavy,
i have read that the law requires that all sushi fish be frozen. usually it's flash-frozen, which results in little/no degradation, but it's all frozen. Not a reason to skip a sushi restaurant (though it sounds like there were many others to skip no-name).
I can understand avoiding cheap sushi, especially if it's made you sick in the past. Sushi is one of those things it seems worth spending money on to know you're getting good stuff (and it's usually fairly obvious when you aren't).
On the other hand, avoiding a good restaurant (like House of Nanking for example) because of some hipster/locals-don't-go-there bullshit? That's just snobbery.
i worked at no name sushi in 1988-89, rollin' makizushi for some of you oldtimers (= i'm sad. those were good days.
bjunge- yes I'm a snob, but in that comment I wasn't being snobby, I was noting that locals are smart because they frequent shops near their house at a higher frequency than visitors to the hood. So I tend to respect their opinion, as they see a restaurant in its good light and bad, day in and day out. And by locals, I mean those that live within one or two blocks and consider church & market their local shopping district. But you're right about me personally, I'm a snob in general, and *definitely* about raw fish.