For hard core restauranteurs, the business is life. Each day, every waking hour, and even those when sleep should take over, is weighed down by responsibility. Ryuji “Mike” Kimura, owner, chef, and devotee of Kihachi Japanese Restaurant on Sawmill Road, knows the sacrifice, familial and physical, of starting and running a destination restaurant for more than two decades — and he’s done.
Kimura’s culinary life “just kinda happened,” he said, starting when he attended Tsuji Cooking Academy in Osaka. Shuffling from restaurant to restaurant, Japan to Thailand, and eventually to New York City, Kimura landed in Columbus in 1985, following a friend who’d opened his own restaurant, Jao, which is now closed.
In 1993, Kihachi opened. Rather than struggling to build a customer base from curious eaters, from the start they’ve attracted guests already familiar with Japanese cuisine. A small restaurant tucked inside a shopping plaza, it’s not a place someone just wanders into, said Kimura’s friend and translator Isao Shoji. It has to be sought out.
And it is. While newer restaurants tout seasonal menu changes, Kimura said he’s tried his best to keep everything exactly the same. His traditional approach to food preparation sets him apart from the lazier chefs resorting to instant Dashi, among other things.
Involved in every aspect of the business, Kimura plays his role as chef while they’re open and comes in on Sundays and Mondays to clean, grocery shop and prep.
Roughly 1,200 90-hour work weeks down, Kimura is ready to pass along the restaurant, the name, and all of his recipes to an up-and-coming chef. He’s suffered a rotator cuff injury, and through years of hunching over cutting boards and cooktops, he’s developed arthritis in his hands. His son works with a painting company, and although his daughter went to culinary school and helps out around Kihachi, she has no interest in taking it over and making it her life’s work.
Kimura imagines he’s spent 80 percent of his life at Kihachi since it opened, “and my family, they have made a lot of sacrifices to keep it going, too.”
“I wish somebody would take over,” Kimura said.
“The business has been there a long time,” Shoji added. “It’s been running a profit. It’s just time for them to go, and they’d love to find that next person that wants to give it a go.”
The restaurant is currently for sale through Sokol and Associates. Shoji said Kimura isn’t holding on to Kihachi for a certain period of time. It’s just a matter of the right person coming along who sees the space as the right fit.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/Kihachi-Japanese-Restaurant-121141911233894.