Asian restaurant shuts down abruptly after nearly 2 decades

A local sushi restaurant has closed its doors after more than 17 years in business, the victim of declining sales, a rash of break-ins and a legal dispute with a former owner, its current owner said.

The Sushi Cafe at 108 Byers Road in Miamisburg shut down after the close of business Monday night, and its owners were removing personal belongings this afternoon, Tuesday Sept. 13.

“We don’t want to close, but there’s no choice for us anymore,” a tearful Jing Guo, co-owner of Sushi Cafe with her husband, said outside the restaurant this afternoon. “We were not making enough to pay our bills.”

She was apologetic. “I know that for the last two years, service has not been great, because I’m tired,” she said. “We will miss all the customers.”

Jing Guo said sales have declined in recent years as other sushi restaurants opened across the region and after Sushi Cafe’s former owner opened a restaurant in the Centerville-Washington Twp. area. A lawsuit over the opening of that restaurant was filed in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court in 2010 and was settled in 2012, but Jing Guo said the fallout from the legal dispute lingered.

In addition, the restaurant has been the site of multiple break-ins and theft of restaurant property, including a recent incident in which an intruder cut a hole in a wall that took thousands of dollars to repair, Jing Guo said.

The restaurant, which opened in 1999, had been a popular destination for sushi enthusiasts. And when it opened, it was among the first, if not the first, restaurant to serve Japanese and Korean cuisine in Montgomery County’s south suburbs. Many others followed over the 17 years.

Jing Guo said she and her husband plan to move back to their hometown of Philadelphia.

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