An upscale sushi restaurant will debut this weekend in downtown Colorado Springs — the newest idea from a restaurateur who’s additionally introduced Mexican fare and pizza to town’s central enterprise district.
Sushi Row will open at 5 p.m. Saturday at 316 N. Tejon St. within the former YMCA workplace constructing and is an element of a bigger mixed-use redevelopment venture on the website, which features a second restaurant and places of work — although a luxurious condominium part has been placed on maintain.
Jason Wallenta, co-owner of downtown’s Dos Santos Tacos, White Pie Pizzeria and Mexican restaurant Dos Dos, and his spouse, Riley O’Brien, have launched Sushi Row beneath Row Home Hospitality, an organization they shaped two years in the past.
Sushi Row homeowners Jason Wallenta and his spouse, Riley O’Brien, pose for a portrait within the restaurant Thursday. The Sushi Row idea has been a “ardour venture” for the pair for years, he mentioned.
Wallenta and his brother, Kris, opened Dos Santos Tacos in Denver in 2015, and expanded the model to Colorado Springs three years later with a location on South Tejon Road. They opened White Pie Pizzeria in 2021 on South Nevada Avenue and Dos Dos — a Dos Santos spinoff — in December on North Tejon.
Kris, nonetheless, is not concerned in Sushi Row, Jason Wallenta mentioned.
The Sushi Row idea has been a “ardour venture” for Wallenta and his spouse for years, he mentioned; they’d regularly go for sushi at lunch after they started courting.
“It was simply form of our factor,” Wallenta mentioned.
An assortment of sushi and one among Sushi Row’s home rolls, the Kobra Kai, are pictured.
When Dos Santos Tacos opened in Colorado Springs, Wallenta and O’Brien moved to city from the Denver space, however felt native sushi selections “have been restricted,” he mentioned.
“There wasn’t that many high-end choices for the delicacies that we have been on the lookout for,” he mentioned.
Since then, Wallenta and O’Brien have envisioned a sushi idea of their very own.
“There isn’t any sushi that’s, like, attention-grabbing,” Wallenta mentioned. “We simply needed one thing nearer to Sushi Den (a high-end Denver restaurant). We needed one thing like elevated sushi.”
Their imaginative and prescient included a three-year recruitment of Batzaya “Zaya” Altbish, the chef of their favourite sushi restaurant in Denver, to associate with them. Altbish now has moved to the Springs together with his household to assist oversee Sushi Row, Wallenta mentioned.
With upscale decor, a brand new patio with fireplace options and plans to play hip-hop and different fashionable music on a high-end sound system, Sushi Row co-owner Jason Wallenta says he hopes to supply one thing he feels is missing in Colorado Springs: a high-end sushi restaurant that gives an important environment and nice meals. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette)
Sushi Row may have fish flown in weekly and serve conventional sushi, however “with some improvements and our private touches,” Wallenta mentioned. The menu will embrace nigiri and sashimi rolls, veggie and customized rolls, West Coast Kumamoto oysters and even caviar within the subsequent few weeks, he mentioned. The bar additionally will characteristic champagne, home cocktails and saké.
The restaurant will occupy about 2,300 sq. ft on the north aspect of the previous YMCA constructing, and have a 700-square-foot patio out entrance. Its kitchen opens as much as the eating room, which has been designed with walnut slab tables and incorporates uncovered brick on partitions and columns.
Sushi Row — which can be a part of a number of eating, consuming and dessert choices within the 300 block of North Tejon — might be an enormous step up from the sushi eating places that Colorado Springs diners have seen on the town, predicted native developer Joe Niebur. He and associate Ray Thomas of Thomas Normal Contractors in Colorado Springs reworked the previous YMCA constructing, a Mediterranean-style construction constructed in 1956 and identified for its tile roof, arched home windows and courtyard.
Thomas additionally was the overall contractor, although not a associate, on Niebur’s redevelopment of a South Tejon constructing the place a greater than century-old former trolley automotive barn was remodeled right into a hub for eating places and leisure makes use of, together with Dos Santos Tacos.
Sushi Row ’s bar will characteristic a variety of home cocktails (pictured right here) and quite a lot of Japanese liquors, beers and sakes. (Parker Seibold, The Gazette)
“We positively spent some cash,” Niebur mentioned of the YMCA constructing. “If I will do one thing, I need to do it cool. There’s loads of common. We’d like new issues (which might be) high finish right here. We have got to set a brand new commonplace right here on the town. The sushi place is certainly going to be above anything on the town so far as high quality of meals and high quality of expertise.”
A hospitality firm that operates the Denver-area La Loma and Sierra eating places has signed a lease to take over the remaining 7,500 sq. ft of the previous YMCA constructing’s first flooring, together with a 1,500-square-foot patio, the place it is going to open a brand new restaurant idea this yr, Niebur mentioned.
An area workplace of nationwide industrial brokerage Capstone Cos., in the meantime, has moved into the constructing’s 3,000-square-foot second flooring, Niebur mentioned.
His plans for a multi-story condominium constructing to be constructed behind the YMCA constructing, nonetheless, have been shelved — although not deserted, Niebur mentioned. Increased building prices and rates of interest have made it too expensive to go forward with the venture presently, he mentioned. He initially envisioned condos promoting for upward of $1 million.
“We’ll worth it once more and see what it does,” Niebur mentioned.