Since early this year, I’ve been hearing about this new sushi spot. All you can eat. Food comes on a conveyor belt that runs throughout the restaurant. Whole thing is train station-themed.
As a millennial, this is firmly in my wheelhouse. I grew up on the theme restaurants of the 90s. The jungle-themed Rainforest Cafe. The over-the-top memorabilia fest of Planet Hollywood. More kitschy 1950s-themed diner chains than you can shake a blue suede shoe at.
Only problem: the place is in High Point.
Which, as a problem, is ridiculous on its face. We’re talking 20 minutes from my front door. I’ve driven farther within Greensboro because I heard a rumor about a good Jamaican food truck on the other side of town.
But if you live here, you know the weird reality distortion field that exists around the idea of going from one Triad city to another for any reason. There are great things to be had in High Point and Winston-Salem. But somehow they feel as far away as Raleigh and Durham—if not farther. We know it’s ridiculous. We know we have to get over it. But we’ve really got to make ourselves go.
So, my wife and I finally got together with some friends from High Point to check out Shinjuku Station Revolving Sushi Bar. Their young daughter loves the place, so they’d already been a few times.
“The sushi is okay,” they told us. “But it’s really…an experience.”
That it was.
This chain of sushi places—already coast to coast in the U.S., with new outposts coming to Winston-Salem, Raleigh, and Charlotte—is themed on the world’s busiest train station, located in the famously vibrant Shinjuku district in Tokyo. Neon signs glow and blink as you walk in through a faux turnstile, a whole wall lit up with a projection of episodes of popular Japanese cartoons, and another with video of Tokyo street scenes and the window view from a swiftly moving train. In a far corner, a wall of vending machines let kids pick Japanese toys on their way out. You can see and hear the open kitchen as you’re ushered to a booth or bar table—and it is going full tilt.
“Not for the easily overstimulated,” my wife said.
From your seat, you have access to the large conveyor belt that moves various types of sushi—mostly nigiri, maki, and uramaki—past you at all times. Reach out and help yourself. You can order other things on a computer tablet provided at each table—some, like desserts or higher-end fare—for an upcharge over the all-you-can-eat price.
While there is a wait staff, a lot of their work is shared by something for which no one prepared me—a team of robots gliding across the dining room to bring the additional items you’ve ordered at your table. This should feel dystopian, but within the context of this glowing, whirring, buzzing train station environment, I was oddly charmed by it.
The truth is, this sort of dining—with and without the Chuck E. Cheese for Gen Alpha trappings—has been common in Japan for decades now. When you think about it, it’s not that different from the old automats for which The Greatest Generation (and some Boomers) are now so nostalgic. They’re producing best-selling books and award-winning documentaries about them.
How was the sushi? Decent. The all-you-can-eat option at Mizumi Hibachi & Sushi on State Street is better—but that’s just dinner.
Shinjuku Station is, indeed, an experience.
